Anchored
by queenofthelab23
Summary: Aaron/Marta on their fishing boat, hiding and getting very well acquainted with each other. They're looking for a happy end to the story... but will it ever end? Was a one-shot, now a multichapter!
1. Chapter 1

The first few days on the weather worn little boat were mind numbingly easy. It made Aaron wary of letting down his reflexes, of getting complacent that they'd given up looking for the loose threads to cut. Of course they hadn't stopped looking for him and the Doc, he doubted they ever would. The first day on the boat, Marta had been put to work twining strands of rope together after being taught how to by the fisherman's oldest boy. Aaron saw the way that kid looked at Marta, like she was a drink of water in a drought. In the sun, Marta glowed. Her pale complexion never seemed to burn, it just glowed like moonlight. He couldn't blame the kid for wanting what he couldn't touch.

Three days in, spent sharpening knives, repairing netting, helping to fish and take care of the boat and Aaron was getting worried. The next time they docked, they'd have to take off somewhere. His gunshot wound was close to healing thanks to Marta's magic and viralling off on greens. She was more beaten up than he was now. When she turned a certain way and winced, trying not to let it show she was still in pain, he knew there were bruises she was hiding but he could never blame her for. She was a warrior, a fighter and a survivor.

Day four on the boat had dawned. They had a room below deck; two thin feather-stuffed mats on the floor next to each other. He never slept for more than a few hours, if that. He saw a lot of dead women and children in his dreams, people he'd killed or been responsible for. Lately, it was her. He couldn't let her die, not now, not after everything. How she'd saved him, gotten him through viralling, killed that LARX agent sent after them. If she died under his gaze, he wouldn't stop until the entire organisation had suffered. Only then would he let himself end. It's what happened every night on that boat in his nightmares, anyway.

Pressing a button on the new cheap watch he'd bought from the fisherman's son, he sees the time. 3.04am. He gazes up at the ceiling, the wood cracked enough to see the sky above them. He turns and looks at her, sleeping on the next mat, breathing deep and peaceful. She'd have nightmares too, soon. He wasn't quite sure how he was going to handle that one. Aaron frowned as he heard a creak beyond what should have been. He reached down to his side; hand on his gun as he sat up. Aaron turned to Marta. Her eyes had shot open and were the brightest he'd seen. She nods and grabs the knife by her head. Aaron places a finger to his lips and watches silently. Completely still. He gets up off his mat, Marta's form safely behind him. His footsteps barely make a sound as he's been trained. He goes to the door and yanks it open.

No one there. He watches like an eagle for anything but the trail is cold, any footsteps are gone and it's just him and Marta in the room, tense and jittery. He closes the door again and bolts it tight. Aaron hears Marta sigh in relief and the knife clatter back down. She chuckles and groans, "Fuck me." She lies back down, "It's like living in a horror movie." She mutters turning to face his mat as Aaron lies back down.

He chuckles and looks at her, "Thanks for the compliment. Really needed the morale boost."

"Not like that. It's just…" she shrugs, "Not knowing what's around the corner. It's makes you..."

He can sense the tension in her voice. Just a quiver. "If you want a get out of jail free card, there isn't one." Aaron looks at her. "It's this or let them take you out."

"Not much of a choice." Marta mutters.

Aaron brushes his fingers down hers, "Never had one, Doc. Never will."

She threads her fingers tightly through his and brushes her thumb across his wrist. An uncomplicated action between them now, "I know. I'm sorry." She stares at him. "You should teach me how to fight when we get off this boat. Anything you can, teach me. Maybe I can save you too."

Aaron's mind flashes back to hearing her scream his name, screaming for him to run from the police. She could have just run, let him get captured and killed. She was smart. She'd have blended in with a crowd and left. But she didn't. Marta screamed and they ran after her. It occurred to him then that maybe he didn't have to teach her anything. "Maybe."

She yawns a little and winces again, caught off guard at the bruising he knew she had on her ribs. "If, just if, we get out of this alive, together… what then?" she asks.

Aaron just looks at her. Domesticity? Pipe dream. "Sleep, Doc. You need sleep."

She seems to take it as rote and immediately falls back into an easy sleep, their hands heavy and weighted together, as anchored in a storm.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello! Thanks for all the lovely reviews and follows. Turns out the Aaron/Marta bug has bitten me well and good. Hope everyone likes Marta just as much.

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**2**

She's a glutton for punishment. _So is he._

It isn't until morning that Marta realises she's was holding hands with a man she'd basically treated as petri dish for 4 years of his life. Not even bothering with his name; now it was bothering her. She keeps her eyes closed even though she was now awake, sun blaring through the cracks, the smell of salt from the sea and the smell _too familiar _of Aaron lingered. His hand is still threaded through hers and feels heavy, calloused against her worn but soft skin. She thinks of her father, who had called carpentry a hobby for 35 years of his life; he had never had callouses like Aaron. Maybe no one had callouses like Aaron.

He reminded her of forests and rain, slipping on wet leaves in the Fall around her old house. _Thank god he burnt it. I burnt it._ Marta had to trust the man who took on police and guns and LARX agents to protect her. She didn't know why. She felt more of a liability now that he had viralled off on blues and greens. He didn't need her. _She needed him_. The net was closing around her and all she could focus on was the other one caught with her, never the escape route. It occurs to Marta that maybe she was a sadist after all. Perhaps she enjoyed the pain they were in. _Makes me feel alive._

The way he had nearly died of fever _twice_ by her hands. Doctors were meant to heal, not inflict more and more pain, what the hell kind of doctor was she? Marta hates the way she can't stop picturing him on that bed, sweaty and feverish. She had heard him mutter of his pains, all his pains, and felt them too. She couldn't not care for him; it was impossible not to feel for this broken man, held together by altered chromosomes and a thirst for survival _and a superhero complex_. She was pretty broken too. Marta wonders why she hasn't had nightmares yet. She's sure if he were to stop holding her hand she'd start.

Marta opens her eyes slowly. They ache and itch, feeling dry and half dead in her skull. Those bruises haven't faded. She sees his piercing _all too forgiving_ eyes looking into hers and suddenly feels like she's the one in the petri dish now. He doesn't seem to be bothered by her feigning sleep. Aaron's probably been watching her to see how long it'd take her to give up the pretence of peace.

"Your eyes are beautiful." He mutters softly, not moving, like the assassin he was meant to be. She studies the lines around his face, the scars and sweat and dirt. He was beautiful.

Marta quirks her lip up in a half smile, "How long have you been watching me?" Something about him frightened and exhilarated her. The thrill of the chase, and the fear of getting killed. It was a potent mixture which made for some complicated feelings. _Can't fall in love again. Not after Number 3. If he was like a firework, then maybe Aaron is napalm._

"Seemed like you wouldn't mind, being asleep and all." Aaron brings up their intertwined hands. Slowly, almost in slow motion in Marta's mind, his chapped _so warm_ lips crested over her still sore knuckles.

She inhales a little and thinks, locking her eyes up with his again. "Are we lost yet?"

Aaron smirks. She knows what he's thinking. "We're only lost if we want to be." He puts their hands down again, "We could go anywhere. Get lost in some part of the world."

Marta shakes her head, "No, no they'd find us and hurt us and-"

"And I'll kill them." He says plainly, without elaboration. She wonders when he stopped thinking about the people he's killed. About families and friends and birthdays they'd never see simply because they were in the way or following orders. She thinks then that he'd kill for her. Who was she kidding? He'd already killed for her. Marta watches Aaron's tongue wipe his lip a tiny fraction. "Or… we could find a friend. Take down everything. Wipe the past away and begin again."

In other circumstances, maybe Aaron would have killed her too.

She pulls back a little, "There's no such thing as a clean slate. Something always survives. It's science."

His mood darkens instantly. He knows she's right. "Not everything is science and cold hard facts, Doc." He sits up, letting go of her hand. She feels the loss. Completely exposed, completely bereft. _How did she manage without him? When did she become so dependent on his calloused hands?_

"Not everything is guns blazing, blood, violence, anger…" she sits up too, looking down at her feet. She takes a breath and looks at him. "We can't do it alone." _I can't do this alone._

Aaron smiles and jumps up so that he's standing above her, offering her his hand. "Who said we were?"

She takes his hand.

_Definitely a sadist._


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you all so much for the reviews. I'm remembering why I got back into writing fanfic now *smiles* The Aaron/Marta bunnies strike here...

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3

Her hand always feels good in Aaron's. The lightweight softness of her pearlescent skin under his roughness made Aaron wonder whether she was like this naturally or had some overpriced fancy cream to get it that soft. His eyes flicker up and down her body as she stands. He wants, in that moment, to go down on his knees and find if it was all over her body. It's not a thought which occurs to him often, at least. Those ideas are what'll get you killed in more ways than one. Aaron doesn't let go of her hand when he's supposed to. Instead, he waits until she has that wrinkle in her forehead she gets when she thinks too much. It's adorable and he finds it laughable how beautiful confusion is on her face. "If we have any hope in hell, it'll have to be alongside Jason Bourne." He wanders over to their backpack and squats, finding his map and unfurling it like a white flag. "He can tell us what we need to know to blow it worldwide."

Marta stands beside him for a moment then crouches down, looking over the map with him. His heightened senses can smell a bare remnant of the soap she last used. It's clinical and abrasive. He doesn't want her skin to roughen like his. You need to tell me everything you know about Treadstone, Blackbriar… anything."

She frowns a little and he sings the praises of that wrinkle coming back. "I don't know anything about them. We were given the agents' blood work over a two-year period to estimate what the participants we'd be working with would have in their systems already. Like a soft opening for a hotel or something…"

He snorts a little, "You mean I wasn't your first? I'm insulted. I thought we had something special."

Marta smirks back, "Never claimed you were the first but I hope you're the last." She puts her fist on his shoulder and stands up, grabbing a bottle of water from the pack. "But I don't know much. Not enough to track anyone down."

Aaron takes a breath. His head swirled with all he had read about Bourne. All the rumours he'd heard. He remembers what happened to Number 3. That was a particularly vicious way for them to get rid of a loose end, the poor bastard.

"Bourne's… different. Treadstone was just training and behaviour modifications for assassinations but they didn't use chems or viralling like Outcome. He's not untraceable anyway; he's shown up all over the world the past few years. Causes mayhem and then disappears."

"If he's shown up everywhere, how are we going to figure out where he'll be next?" she asks, offering him the water.

Aaron takes it gratefully, drinking a mouthful, "Exactly. That's why you're the smart one." He looks up at her. She always has a vague look of trust about her. Aaron's gaze wanders to the side she was massaging gently. Just a fingertip was circling her bruised ribs. He suddenly remembered her injuries were still healing. "But we should stay here for a few more days. Work on it…"

Marta tilts her head, "Why? We're off the grid, the sooner we can find Bourne, the better…" Her eyes stare into his. She's seen his eyes flicker to her flank, obviously. "It's these, isn't it?" she lifts up the side of her black vest to show the ugly bruises that pattern her skin like rough-hewn carpet, "I'm a liability."

He stands up immediately and goes over to her, "You are not a liability, Doc. You're injured, there's a difference. If you get hurt, it's on my head." It's always on his head. "After Manila, we don't know what they'll send. You're the one who took out a LARX agent, they will be so pissed off at you, pissed off that they underestimated you…" he's now somehow, someway, cupping her cheeks in his palms, "You getting hurt is not the plan." Aaron is suddenly aware that he could so easily snap her neck in his palms. It scares him how much she controls his emotions. He can't think straight when she smells like bravery.

"I'm not hiding anymore… or running away." She mutters. Her eyes are drifting around his face, searching for belief, he thinks. He's her personal Jesus.

His hands drop from her face and she seems tiny again. "We're not doing either, we're recovering. It's what we do."

"I'm not an agent though. I'm a… was a scientist." She runs the lithe, thin things she calls fingers through her dark brown hair like spray over a waterfall.

Aaron raises an eyebrow as she paces up and down a little. "You're an agent now. I'll make you one if I have to… get you to think smart for once."

She laughs then. It's beautifully sardonic. "Think smart? I like that one, that's funny…" Aaron arrests her arm with his hand, "I mean it. No heroics, no sacrifices, no screaming at police so they'll chase you instead of me. Look out for number one, Marta." He pulls her closer to him, "You might not be able to save yourself, otherwise. It's all about survival."

She swallows and his eyes trace the lines of her neck. His hand runs down her bare arm and she breaks out in goose bumps. So he does have an effect on her.

"I don't want to just survive, Aaron, I want to live." Marta's eyes plead with him. "There has to be a way of finding Bourne quickly without revealing ourselves. I don't want to stay here anymore… please."

He leans in slowly. His heart hammers a little in his chest. His lips press a slight kiss to her forehead. "I'll find a way."

It seems he's still a coward, even after chems.

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Please review if you liked it, they keep me going. xxx


	4. Chapter 4

Wow. I can't believe all the wonderful reviews for the last chapter :) love you all! I've just finished a course for my degree so hopefully more updates will be coming soon. This one contains a line from House (which I've repurposed) so credits to whoever wrote that one. It got to me today.

Mild warning for a little hint of violence but this is Aaron... who are we kidding?

If you like, please review :)

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4

_Nearly dying changes nothing. Dying changes everything._

She isn't dead. She's pretty sure she's isn't dead. If this is some kind of Hell she's been demoted to, it's a bad version of it. Like a pirated video version. Marta's sure Aaron wouldn't be kissing her forehead if this were real Hell. Her eyes cloud over and she sighs, grabbing onto his strong _safe_ arms. If only there was a way to cross that threshold on equal terms. Love compromises situations that are surrounded by people shooting guns at you; it makes you think irrationally. At least, that's what Marta's learnt from 10 years of cop shows and almost two weeks with Aaron Cross. How can he accept all this, this whole fuck up of a life, without any wavering? He'd told her to take the money and run for her life _away from him_ but Marta hadn't even thought about leaving him alone. Perhaps it was a selfish notion in reality but she couldn't let him push her away for anything. He was right about her, though. She was a warrior, except now she was fighting for him as well. _Just hold your breath and let go._

He still has a grip on her jaw. It feels so tender and strong, she wonders whether self-control was in his training too. "It's a promise, Doc. I'll get you your life back if it kills me."

"What if I don't want it?" She mutters. His thumb was now tracing the bare edge of her bottom lip. She hates how good it feels. "I'm being serious, Aaron. Don't want it. My old life… that mess… it didn't have you."

She looks up at him and sees his edge. Aaron threads his fingers through her hair and tugs her head up to his lightly. The sharp pain makes Marta gasp and suddenly he's not so dangerous. He could kill her. He could kill her. _He won't kill her. _"Don't make promises you can't keep, Doc. I've seen agents who were… Outcome called it 'compromised'." He hasn't let go of his hold on her hair but softens. His fingertips dance on her skull and set her nerve endings alight. _Christmas has come early._

"It's not compromise, Aaron. It's… being open." Marta licks her lips. The wetness cools instantly. Maybe she was dying._ Nerve endings go into overdrive just before you die._

"Vulnerable."

"Yes. Yes, it is. It's pain and anger and jealousy and … and…"

His eyes have gone dark. "Lust."

Marta nods and swallows again. _Did he take another step forward?_ "That too."

Aaron almost growls and lets her go completely. Self-control had to be part of his training. "Marta, you can't be talking about this now. Not now, not here. Not ever. Understand?"

She folds her arms. _Marta Shearing is still in there somewhere after all_, "No. Don't order me around. Your gun isn't pointed at my head, Aaron. Is that the only way you get people to do what you want them to, think what you want them to? By making them stare down the barrel to your goddamn face at the other end?"

He has his back turned to her now, fingers gripping the wooden table._ He'll get splinters._ She can see the twitch in his muscles. Aaron doesn't say a word.

She bites her lip. Marta takes a step forward and touches his shoulder. The barest hint of contact.

Aaron wheels around and grabs her by the throat before he can stop himself. A second. That is all it takes for his self-control to snap. "Why aren't you afraid of me?"

She smiles smugly. His fingers are still wrapped around her throat. "Why are you afraid of me, Aaron?"

Marta nearly buckles to the ground when his other hand holds her waist. Her ribs were still painful but not enough for her to let him distract her. "Is this a dance?" The hand around her throat loosens and lingers. _It's all they've ever done._

"Don't know how to dance." He says gruffly. "If I were some guy you met… if you were a teacher and I was on the street and I bumped into you, we'd go for coffee because I felt bad for spilling your drink and we'd talk and I'd make you laugh. I'd ask you out on a date. Take you to the movies or a picnic in the park."

"So in your head, we live in a rom com?"

"Shut up." He has the decency to blush. "We'd date and maybe you'd want another and then another and another. I'd meet your parents and tell you my secrets. I'd get down on one knee and give you my grandmother's ring. We'd have… have kids and grow old and die happy."

"And dance." She lays her head on his chest. His fingers are on the back of her neck. Marta runs her own down his arms. "Live a normal life."

"But we can't. We made choices... I don't regret them. Not a single one, Marta Shearing."

She leans back. "I don't either. Except the Number 5 thing." She laughs and looks down.

He lifts her off his chest. "Nearly dying changes nothing, Doc." He leans in close to her lips. "Dying changes everything."

_Was she dead?_

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A/N: I'm completely evil, I know...


	5. Chapter 5

Hello again :D Firstly, a huge thank you to all the wonderful reviewers for the last chapter. I can't remember the last time I felt so good about my writing. I guess it's the effect of Aaron and Marta. This chapter happens to be my favourite I've written so far but it's a little different. There's so much I want to write more for them!

Now, onto Number Five... please review if you liked :) it'll make me write faster, I promise.

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5

Aaron is so close. So close to losing it all and liking it. So close to her plump rose lips and oblivion lying before him. Aaron looks past her and sees it Marta letting her guard down, trusting him when she really shouldn't. Even Aaron doesn't trust Aaron. The air turns colder around him and he breathes, rippling her hair around his fingers and it feels like honey dripping through them, so much he can almost smell the sweetness. He licks his lips absently, hungry. How sweet would it be to fall into an abyss as warm as Marta, without a threat of a bullet in his head as soon as he closes his eyes? If he lets himself go would they end up dead on the ground? A sniper took an opportunity when their target's guard was down, an opening to an ending. He was trained enough to spot the signs. Aaron smirks sardonically at her. There was never any doubt in his mind where this was leading to. Their foot-stepping around each other was the only dance he could do well. Marta is the perfect partner for him, after all.

Aaron's lips hover over hers, the space between them a chasm. That delicate pale skin of hers was trembling and he loved it, he loved to see her react. She was still so innocent. It made him almost not want to taint her. Almost. His hands may be covered in blood but hers were getting coated pretty quickly. Aaron never pretends to be a martyr or a saint or even a good guy but she knows him pretty damn well to realise who he is. There are still some undiscovered lands between them. He needs to show her who he could be. There's so much potential for more.

"Maybe I have a death wish." He murmurs under his breath. He discovers he loves watching her eyes dilate and her chest heaving in sinful ways he cannot possibly voice to her. His imagination isn't tainted by those viruses she injected into him. "Do you?"

Marta, for all her balls, just nods at him. Aaron is still cradling the back of her head. "Ever since I started losing my humanity by treating agents as lab rats… I made you go through mazes to get my results. I think I was more ruthless than you were."

"Then you don't really know me at all, Doc." He growls low in his throat like the wolves who hunted him. Aaron pushes her roughly against the heavy wooden door, the creaking distracting her enough so Aaron can pin her hands above her head. He hears her gasp and doesn't care. This isn't about flirting with danger anymore. It's time and he is going to take his. Marta shivers imperceptibly. Aaron smiles and lets one hand trail down her pinned arms, the other holding her wrists to the door. She gasps again when he trails over a bruise. He doesn't bother to be light over her sore skin anymore. If she wants this, wants him, she has to meet him somewhere along his line. She was a warrior. Warriors didn't get their sores tended to; they wore their weaknesses like badges of honour.

"You're not scaring me, Aaron." Her head hits the door. He wants to kiss the hollow of her throat, drag his weather-worn lips along the silk skin there and rough it up. "Or distracting me."

Aaron chuckles and tilts his head, eyes brazen and unapologetic. "Doesn't it bother you? That I have you against a door, you have no weapon, no strength to escape? I could kill you Marta." He looks at her. "I could kill you so easily."

She still shakes her head, "No, no, you couldn't. You won't." She takes a breath and he's resolved to kiss that breath away. "You love me."

"Yes."

The corners of her lips quirk when he doesn't hesitate. Maybe he should have. "I love you too, Aaron."

"Yes." He smiles along with her. "You expected something different?"

Marta smirks. "No." Aaron shifts closer to her, letting his hand on her wrists drop slowly to encircle her waist. His large hands grip her waist on either side; his thumbs barely a few inches apart. She's tiny. She's lost weight and toughened up. Aaron's raising a fighter in her.

"You're kind of cocky, Doc."

She smirks again and Aaron loves her more for it. "You're the one who likes it."

This woman does wicked things to his sensibilities. That torturous devil of a woman. This kind of dancing is the kind Aaron likes. Her body presses up against him, he has the control but she's not pushing him away either. "I'm not taking prisoners anymore, Marta. It's this. All or nothing." The way she chews on her lip is driving him crazy. He can't take it, he won't take it. He shouldn't have to take this mental cruelty from her. She was his now and he was hers. There's just a valley left to cross and he's sure he wants to savour it before they get killed. Dying man's last wish, after all.

"I know." She nods. His fingers seem to drift of their own accord upwards to cradle her cheek. He's so close to crossing. Make the damn call, Aaron. Take the shot. Be the sniper.

"No more games, Doc."

Marta grabs his head in her hands and crashes their lips together. He falls over into that sweet abyss. Sweeter than the honey he dreamed of tasting.

It seems that dying isn't so bad when there's Heaven at the other end.

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A/N: Forget about Marta, Aaron's making _me_ feel weak at the knees :)


	6. Chapter 6

Hello beautiful people :) Here's chapter six! This is one I could really see in my mind, honestly. I love Marta's inner strength and questioning her trust in Aaron is something I wanted to explore a bit more. I know it's only been a day (I think) but even I couldn't wait to write this one. I wanted Marta to take some of the control back and I think this one is the start of something beautiful between them.

Thank you to every single person who reviewed the last chapter :) I love you guys! If you like this one, review it too? I know exactly where the next chapter's heading... don't you?

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6

_Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe it's not._ Marta refuses to let him go. His thumbs are brushing underneath her breasts and she gasps a little from the contact. It's a battle she has to win, to prove her worth to him, to prove how she just _will never_ let him go. He'll have to put that bullet in her brain first. _Maybe this is because they're dying._ She threads her fingers through his hair and tugs at it but he won't let her up to breathe. He's snatching all of it away from her lips like a man who wants her dead. Marta thinks she'll let him. His body is too firm against hers; it feels like a waterfall she wants to see the other side of. Aaron tastes of freedom and danger and _love _and home, finally a home away from the bad and into the beautiful. His arms encircle her body and lift her up against the broken wooden door. He's kissing every inch of her neck and leaving fire in his wake. She wraps her legs around his stomach and locks her ankles behind his back. He carries her weight as if she is made from the cotton he wraps her in. Marta wants to sing the name in praise of whoever taught him how to use his tongue and lips and teeth on her pulse to make her tremble like she is now. _Please don't stop. Don't let go._

It's always been leading to this point. He twirls her around and deposits Marta on the side table pressed up against a wooden wall. He pulls her head back sharply enough so she gasps. He's a master at toeing the line between pain and pleasure. There's so much fire Marta can see in his eyes, as much as he had left on her skin and she wants to burn inside and out all at once, the raging inferno he's stoking is bound to burn him too. His lips are bee stung and flushed, crying out to be kissed again and again. _No, don't ever stop. He's here and now._ Aaron is a god and yet he's the one worshipping her over and over and over…

"Marta." He growls her name and it sounds like a plea. "Marta…" His fingers dance on her back, his nails scratching his ownership out. He's not even taken her clothes off yet and it feels like he's taken _her_ already. _Now that is a skill she can learn from._

She pants a little. Her toes are curling behind his back as he sucks on her skin, drifting lower to her collarbone. "I know. Just… forget the world. Forget it all. Please."

Aaron suddenly pulls back from worshipping her neck to look at her, his fingers darting out to pull strands of loose hair away from her face in a softer caress. He's gone from turbo to gentle in a nanosecond and Marta can't read him. _Why can't she see it?_ There's so much left unsaid, things that don't need to be said. They're running and hiding and fighting to keep afloat in this wreck. _Say something. _

"We can't forget the world, Marta. Not now." He presses a slow, agonising kiss to her lips. _Why does it feel like goodbye?_ "But… we can put a pin in it." He smirks. She wants to slap him.

"Fucker." She grabs him and kisses him again.

He mumbles against her lips, "You wish." Marta tugs his t-shirt up over his muscles and surveys the landscape before her. She wants him so much, in every way she could ever dream of. She leans back and looks at him. She's seen him half naked. Hell, she's seen him whole naked on her exam table but then it was different. It's Aaron _not Number Five._

The scars are evident all over him. There's a sweet shine on his skin that highlights every blemish, mark, and wound he's gotten that hasn't healed over in some way. Marta traces her thumb delicately over a slash on his chest. _Pectoral and deltoid_. "I wish…" she leans in and runs her fingertip along the scar. It feels hollow somehow. "…a lot of things."

"I'm not going to keep pretending that I don't want to tear your clothes off with my teeth." He cups her chin a little roughly and refocuses her eye line to his, "This dance has to end sometime. Question is, how long can we wait?"

Marta slides down from the table and puts her palms on his chest, pushing him backwards. "What makes you think I can wait? We've been playing around this thing since you took my hand and said 'run' and I went with it. I don't know why, honestly. I trusted you with my life." She brazenly looks him up and down. "Maybe I wanted excitement, maybe I wanted an escape. Or wanted to die."

"Is this speech leading to me getting to see you naked? I've been dreaming about it since I first met you." He smirks again. _She's going to slap it from his face one day._

"Just listen to me, Aaron." She wants him to stumble as he takes another step back. He never stumbles. "Maybe I just wanted to make up for my mistakes." Marta licks her lips. "I think I know now, what I actually want."

His back hits a wall and he's still smirking. Fuck him. _She will. _"And what is that, Doc?"

"You."

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A/N: I know the tension's building but the question is, when will it break? :)


	7. Chapter 7

Hello again (so soon!). Now, I need to put a little warning here: this chapter contains some suggestively adult (wahey) themes but nothing explict. If you like my writing, I have another fic on the way so be on the lookout for that some time next week :) If you like this one, please review. The constant love I see here makes everything brighter. So, now onto Marta and Aaron getting some battling in...

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7

She's too good to be true. It's all too good to be true. Aaron smirks down at her, his back against the wall, smirking like he's won and he can see the fire in her eyes stoke a little hotter. He loves to wrap her around his finger and pull a tab so she spins. It's breath taking. He laughs a little because it's hard not to and brings her to him, kissing her hard and roughly like he's always wanted to. Sitting on her little exam table, counting down from a hundred in Russian, checking out her ass and thinking her eyes are the brightest he's ever seen in four continents; turns out it was foreplay. She's not a toy or a piece of porcelain for him to break anymore, she's Marta and he's going to take her in every way possible, on the table, on the floor, in the water they're drifting on…. He loves this beauty of a woman underneath his hands, this bright and brilliantly brave vixen. Aaron fights for dominance with her, pulling and tugging and scraping his teeth across her lips before diving into her neck again. It feels like home and tastes like it too, just like it did a few minutes ago. They may be alphas in every sense of the word but she will always have the power over him. A scientist and a warrior with the power to topple an Outcome agent. Only Marta Shearing could do what none else had achieved. His hands drift down her back to cup her backside and squeeze, a fingertip tracing the back of her thigh where he can reach.

Then Marta moans. "Aaron…" on her breath like it's a praise or a plea and he's half dead just from that. He's hoping it's going to keep her writhing under him. Marta responds to touch like none he's ever experienced. Aaron kisses back up to her jaw, his breath ragged and barely contained. He can't say a word but turn her and pull her willing soft body up against that wall again, his eyes level with her lips. It's too easy to thrill him when it's her. The light from the window shines in a beam across her lips and collar and Aaron's not strong enough to stop himself from sucking on that sunshine. She moans again and he's sure it's a praise this time. He should be the one on his knees. Aaron would kill for another moan of his name from those pert little lips. Her breath hitches when he's over a certain spot and he smirks. He's got her now. He dives into her with gusto, sucking, nipping, and kissing her tender delicate flesh until it glows red as her lips. Aaron gently pushes a thigh between her legs and, _fuck, _she actually whimpers when his knee brushes across her clothed crotch. She will definitely be the end of him.

He pulls back from her neck and looks at her eyes. He doesn't say a word. She doesn't say a word. His hands drift to her hips and pull her onto his thigh, his knee hitting the wall. Aaron licks his lips as she rocks her hips forward and backward, trying to get friction to the best part of her lithe body. He can't help but watch her. He's stubbornly refusing to touch her. This goddess is moving along him, never wavering. Her hands plant themselves on his shoulders and pull him back to her. Aaron tugs up her vest top off and throws it away, trailing a finger from her navel to the valley between her breasts. There's some crap piece of material blocking the view of her breasts.

"It's not going to just take itself off." She licks her lip; her hips have stilled. It's a game again of 'Who'll break first?' If he takes off that cage before she starts writhing on his leg again, he's lost. He wants to lose. Shit.

"It might." He tilts his head and presses a hot kiss to her throat. "I think you like it a little rough, Doc. Not so cold and clinical now, are you? Bet I could make you scream." If he's playing, it's dirty.

She pants and grabs fistfuls of his hair between her fingers. "I can make you scream too."

"I don't doubt it." He chuckles and kisses that valley between her breasts. She moans again and Aaron wants to kiss it. "You know this is all about the burn, right? Making you beg me."

"Up against a wall?" she licks her lips and looks down at him.

His tongue darts out and licks a bead of sweat dripping down from her neck. "You love it. I can feel it, Marta. Don't lie to yourself."

His fingers reach for the straps on her shoulders and pull them down slowly. He wants to savour this moment. If it's to be his last vision of beauty, he's certain he's found the only one that matters. He leans in and kisses each of her breasts delicately. He can see her close her eyes and throw her head back, moaning low in her throat. He explores her skin and she suddenly gasps.

It's not the type of gasp he likes to hear from her lips. It's not a gasp of 'oh my god, you need to rip these clothes off my body and take me here and now'. No. Aaron goes tense and hears the click of a gun's safety being turned off close to his ear. Only, it's not at_ his_ ear…. He pulls back slowly. Marta's eyes are filled with fear. Aaron glances up. White hot rage fills his body like a poker turning a fire into an inferno that threatens to burn this shack-on-a-boat to the ground. Being in love, taking the leap from friends to lovers opens you up to being vulnerable… but not this kind of vulnerability.

Aaron's sure it's not supposed to leave the woman you love with a gun aimed at her temple.

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A/N: You know what, even I hate me now. I wouldn't blame you if you did too.


	8. Chapter 8

Hi! :) I just couldn't stay away from this fic, it seems. I love Marta's feistiness so much, I decided at the end of the last chapter I wanted to put her to the test. I hope she passes in this chapter since she's about to find herself caught between a rock and a hard place (no giggles for hard, please)

This chapter's written a little differently but I hope you'll like it :) if you do, please review. If you liked my other fic, Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, stay tuned because it's getting a part two very soon (and it may be a little bit dirty...)

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8

She can't breathe. _She can't breathe. _Marta screws her eyes shut, willing this to be a dream. It can't be real. Everything's gone from brilliant to _shit_ in five flat seconds. It's just not fair. She feels like a petulant child whose favourite toy was just snatched away. Right. Gun at her head. _She can't breathe for loss and fear._ Whoever is holding that gun to her head, she hopes he's not as good a shot as Aaron. Aaron. She can feel the tension in his muscles from where she's still holding onto him, clutching her fingers in as deep as she can get because it might be the last thing she ever feels beneath them before her brains decorate the wall. She can't see him but knows those dark angry eyes will burn deep into the man with a gun to her head. _He's so angry. _She doesn't want to see it; the other bits of the world are dark and she can't focus. All she wants is Aaron kissing her, is it too much to ask for? A moment of happiness? _She can't breathe._ Marta dare not turn. Don't turn. Turn and she's dead. _Don't even blink._ She chews on her lip and slowly opens her eyes again. _Aaron is so angry._ Marta's eyes whir around the room and she finally… _breathes_.

Marta is a warrior of a woman, he's told her so many times and yet she's letting some ass with a gun ruin her perfect moment. Aaron's rage floats through her fingers into her own body and that's enough. Enough for Marta Shearing to finally get pissed off. She turns her head sharply and looks at the man holding her as a ransom, the gun now aiming at her forehead point blank. It pisses her off that his face is covered. It pisses her off that his gun hasn't wavered. It pisses her off that he's a coward, holding her hostage and not going after her alpha. Take away Aaron's weakness and his strength will crumble. She won't give the masked man the satisfaction of her fear. Marta leans into the barrel of the gun. It leaves a mark between her eyes. "Who the fuck do you think you are? I was about to get laid!"

She hears Aaron chuckle and her assailant turns his gaze. It's enough of a distraction for her to drop to her knees immediately, the gun firing into the wall to her right. It could have gone through her head.

Aaron punches the man hard in the jaw, the impact blunting everything around her. Aaron disengages the gun by the wrist, the weapon flying across the room into two pieces. There's grunting and scrapping as they spar and fight like boys do even in youth. Marta dashes for Aaron's gun, stashed away under his threadbare pillow, dodging the kicks and punches as best she can. He should train her better. Adrenaline, adrenaline is pumping as fuel around her body. She should be on a table or up against a wall, naked and getting devoured and she is _so fucking pissed off _that it's not happening that she wants to kill this cruel _asshole. _Aaron punches him again and again and again and gets punched back a couple of times.

"Aaron!" Marta shouts his name and throws him his own precious life preserver of a gun. Aaron catches it as if it's nothing and holds it to the masked man's head defiantly in a win. He has the upper hand and suddenly _guns are fantastic again._

Then everything stills. Her heart is beating so hard in her chest, she's convinced it's a cardiac arrest and she'll collapse at any second. _Why didn't she get to throw a punch or two?_ Aaron doesn't look at her. He's staring straight at the man in black. "The lady asked you who you are." He smirks and cocks the gun's safety off. Marta knows better and can see his rage still beyond the smirk. "I suggest you answer it."

"I just decided to speed up the process. You made a lot of people desperate." the masked man murmurs, panting a little. He's just as defiant as Aaron. They never admit defeat. "I thought Outcome would have put me on your assassination list before you fucked it all to Hell, Agent Cross. But then Outcome always did fuck a _lot_ of stuff up along the way. Original recipe is always better, don't you think?"

He takes off the balaclava hiding his face and Aaron's eyes widen imperceptibly. Wait. Marta knows his face. Where does she know him from? Aaron's gun doesn't waiver; he can't trust this guy. "Why are you here?"

"I've been monitoring you." The man says and glances to his disassembled gun. "Since last night."

Marta could curse herself. Those footsteps Aaron heard…

"The footsteps last night. They were you, you planted a bug." He sounds… annoyed? "How did you outrun me? I was quick!"

The man smirks, "I'm quicker."

Here comes the male posturing. Marta sighs and leans against the back wall, crossing her arms across her chest. This always happens whenever he comes across a man he perceives as a threat. He was sure Aaron was the one who gave the fisherman's son a warning not to look down her shirt.

"No, you're quieter; there's a difference." Aaron's smirking right back. Marta thinks they should both just put them on a table and measure. Men.

"Please. You think I haven't read about you? Your name, your photo is splashed all across the world, Cross. I know that everything special about you came from a vial and some pills, courtesy of her." He gestures to Marta, "At least in my day, they recruited people who were special already."

"Well you'd know all about the good _old_ days, wouldn't you? Looking a bit past it now, huh? Crows' feet around the eyes, bit less power in the punching arm, too, I bet. Having trouble keeping up with the young guns nowadays?"

Marta giggles and the guy-she-doesn't-know stares daggers at her. She shrugs and smirks, "You did lose the fight..." she mutters, staring at him.

"Why on earth did you take this one with you, Cross?"

Aaron grins, "She makes me laugh. You need a laugh now and then when there's guys with guns and black masks monitoring your sexual escapades…"

"Or lack thereof." Marta adds. _This man has the worst timing in the world._

Aaron chuckles, "See, told you she was funny." He's still holding the gun straight. "Now. Why are you here?"

"I came to make a deal."

"We're not in the habit of making deals without knowing the whole story."

A little part of Marta smiles at the 'we'.

"I'm not here to make a deal with you. I'm here because they contacted me. They want me to give you to them in exchange for my freedom." He says. She can't tell if he's lying and it's making her mad again. "It's a very, very tempting offer."

"What?" Marta gets up from the wall and stalks over to him, completely unafraid. She's not a scared little scientist in her lab anymore. She's a warrior. "Who the_ fuck_ are you?!"

The man frowns and tilts his head, looking past her to Aaron. _Oh fuck him too. _"She doesn't know? You sure can pick them, huh?"

Marta turns around on her heels. Aaron's spun her in so many directions she's not sure where they stand. Now she's pissed _and still wants him _and wants answers.

Aaron just stares at the man. "Marta, you should know him. He's the one we've been after. The one we talked about."

Her eyes widen and she spins again. _So many turns._ "Jason Bourne?"

"One and only." The blonde man grins.

"Not anymore." Aaron grins identically back.

Playtime's over now, Shearing.

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A/N: I'd love to know if anyone guessed who the masked man was! :) Also, how am I writing action scenes? Leave me your thoughts and I'll write quicker.


	9. Chapter 9

Hello again :-) Welcome to a new kind of chapter, the one where I attempt to juggle exposition and three characters. Turns out Marta and Jason get along a little better than Aaron cares for, perhaps... I wonder where that'll lead to? Have to say a HUGE thank you for the reviews on the last chapter, you guys are so sweet to me :) I hope this lives up to any expectations you have (in a good way). As always, please read and review if you liked :) So, here goes a new voyage for me...

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9

Aaron smirks at him even wider and tilts his head, the gun never wavering from its position aimed at Bourne's heart. No second chances, he's that kind of a guy. "You come in here to warn us or capture us?"

Aaron finds it strangely disconcerting that he hasn't shot Bourne yet. All his training, all the chemicals, his DNA scream at him to kill this arrogant, dangerous ass. They conditioned him well. If it weren't for Bourne, Aaron would be deep in Marta's supple, sweet body right now, listening to her cry out his name and kissing it away. He wants to wrap Marta around herself and her own pleasure, uncoiling her slowly all night long but now that chance is gone. Another wrecking ball of America leaving him bereft of her. Rat-bastard-Bourne knows exactly when to take his cue and catch Aaron off guard, tasting honey, so he could get them at their most vulnerable; half naked and on the weakened edge between friends and lovers. Aaron saw that gun aimed at her temple and all it took was a split second decision to take this man's life as his trophy. He wanted, still wants, to destroy the world to keep her safe. That gunman was the literal enemy number one; he wasn't about to just forgive a man for holding her as a ransom in their own rosy world. This is Aaron's turf and Aaron will defend it to his own detriment. He won't go anywhere without Marta, he won't let Marta go anywhere without him. He wants so badly to just shoot Bourne between the eyes and go back to their bubble.

That is impossible now. No. He needs to think and think quickly. Figure it out now. Why is Bourne here, really? The scar on his cheek, the healing gash on his forehead tells Aaron that Jason Bourne had seen his fair share of, and probably participated in, a few atrocities. Bourne isn't stupid enough to believe the government would hold up any part of their bargain, is he? Whatever Byer or whoever had told him, they were lying. Suits lie. Suits always fucking lie. From what he's read about this man, this man painted as a terrorist, what he's heard since Bourne went AWOL, he's smart. Smarter than Aaron should anticipate or underestimate; don't underestimate the enemy. No, Aaron has to think. Think quickly before Bourne gets the drop on him and decides to play 'hostage situation from Hasbro' with one of them again. If he held Aaron's gun to Marta's head, Aaron doubts he'd even try to maintain self-control. There'd be blood coating everything He is not about to play around with Marta's safety again. This is his mess and he is cleaning it up. What he thought of as safe had been invaded by a reminder of their lives. He'd got too wrapped up in this whole pantheon of pleasure and pseudo reality with her that he'd forgotten what their real life is, what they should be focussing on. Love is on his back burner again. Always sacrificing. He has to take this whole fuckup down and he needs to get Bourne on side with him, if he isn't already. He has to figure out the puzzle, put together the pieces, find what's needed and throw away the surplus. Bourne's right. Everything special about him came from a vial but it didn't mean he's about to let Bourne get into his head. Aaron was special now, specialised to do his duty to her. He owed her his life, after all.

Objective number one: who is Jason Bourne?

He takes a step forward and hates it when Jason isn't intimidated, not a flinch or a flicker. Fucker. Aaron's not used to being matched. "If you were ordered to kill us, you'd have done it when we were -"

"Doing it?" Jason smirks. Always trying to get a rise out of the opponent. Asshole. Aaron knows what he's thinking. Distract, duck, dive for the gun, knock out… take what he wants. Give nothing back and run. Don't look back. Don't regret...

Aaron quirks an eyebrow at him, "You know what? Considering I won that fight even when you got the jump on me half naked, I think you owe me a few answer as a prize..." In his periphery, Aaron sees Marta still leaning up against the side of their room. She'd already picked up her vest and pulled it back on; he didn't need the sweet begging distraction of Marta in her bra with the straps around her arms. The woman's like waving a meal in front of a starving man.

"Oh I'd say you've got a prize. Not everyone who fucks up the boys in black gets to take their girlfriend with them for the ride." Aaron notices a flicker in his eyes. What was that? Recognition? Jealousy? Longing? This man resents what Aaron has, that's plain to see. He can use it. Eke it out, play with his anger.

"Some of us are good enough to take what matters with us." Aaron lowers the gun a little, "You know you were top of the hit list, right?" he doesn't take his eyes off Jason. Play into it, feed from it…

"Why didn't you kill him?" Marta asks from her wall. They both glance at her identically. "If Aaron's the best and you were at the top of his list, you should've been dead a long time ago." Aaron grins in triumph and Marta rolls her eyes, "I mean, you were at the top of the Outcome Agents' kill lists and yet…" she gestures to Jason, "How?"

"Don't ask me, ask him." Jason gestures to Aaron, "Go on. Tell her." A slow smile appears on Bourne's lips. Brothers in arms only get you so far before they screw you over.

The bounty on Bourne's head had been bigger than the rest of the list combined. He was enemy number one back in the day… a couple of weeks ago. Aaron thinks idly that it's probably him now. You don't send in lions to swat at flies. "I only ever met one other Outcome Agent." He says grimly. Number Three's death and their common ground still haunt him. "But it didn't feel right. Going after you, it was like suicide. It's not an option I wanted to take. Maybe I just didn't want to believe the shit they spread about you."

Jason looks down for a second. Aaron feels sorry for him and he's instantly reminded of Number Three again. How he'd given up love of a woman for love of the mission and then the mission gave up on him. He has a feeling, an intuition that Jason Bourne is sick of making sacrifices for what other people called duty. Aaron shakes his head, "I don't like manipulators or desk jockeys who pretend to know what's best for us."

"I'm not here to kill you. Or bring you in." Jason says softly. "I need skills and knowledge and the only one who has both anymore is her." He gestures to Marta and she actually looks surprised. Aaron has no idea why this woman keeps underestimating her worth. Maybe she had assumed Bourne wanted him instead of her but in truth, there's little difference between Jason and Aaron. Jason wants Marta. It doesn't mean Aaron is going to give her up without another fight. It's the one thing he's good at.

"Me?" Marta asks. "What do you need me for? I'm just a _desk jockey_." Ouch. He'll be paying for that one later. "I can't tell you anything you probably don't already know."

"It's not what you know, it's what you can find out." He goes into his pockets and immediately Aaron hitches the gun up to the heart line again. "Relax, Jiminy." He smirks and pulls out a piece of paper, unfolding it and holding it out to Marta. "I know about LARX agents but I need help. We have to shut down the guards in order to get to the inner sanctum. The only guards left are the five LARX agents."

"Four." Aaron says, his grin coming back.

"Four?" Jason asks, eyes darting between Marta and Aaron.

Marta's eyes are on the paper, studying it, "I killed one a week ago." She says absently. Aaron knows this side of her well. Clinical, distant, absorbed in her work. There was something on that paper that fascinated her and he wants to know what it is that's making her tic.

"You killed a LARX agent?" Jason turns to Aaron. There's that shit-eating grin again, all over Jason's face. Aaron probably should have taken some credit. "Not you, her?"

"I had a couple of bullet holes in me at the time." He needs to defend himself. Okay, so maybe he did have a male pride getting in the way thing. "I think that allows me a little leeway here."

Marta sighs and shakes her head, "These are DNA codes for LARX agents, anyone can-"

"Not anyone, you." Jason mutters, "You're the only one left alive from Outcome. They based LARX from Outcome, ergo you're the only one on the outside who knows how LARX chemicals work. They viralled off on both blue and green but there's another viral, right? Something extra? I need you to tell me what it is."

"Another… another viral? A third viral? There's a third viral?!" Aaron blinks rapidly, not believing his ears. What the hell hadn't she told him?

She nods a little, "Yes, the LARX agents have both blue and green viralling, like…" She glances up at Aaron and stops herself. "But there was meant to be another one we were starting to work on when it all went to Hell. I guess the new researchers succeeded."

"That LARX agent we killed…"

"I killed."

"Marta killed. He shot at children and people on the streets, stuff I've never heard of happening. He didn't flinch, he didn't think, he was a robot." Aaron's eyes go dark. He remembers his own collateral damage. The screams. Children crying over the dead bodies of their parents.

Marta frowns as she looks back down at the paper, oblivious to his memories. He wants to keep it that way. "There's extra biomarkers here. They've definitely added another viralling. If they removed empathy like I think they have, they'd need to viral directly into the brain. I can't figure out how without a live agent. Brain matter is so delicate… it's impossible to see on a cadaver. You need test and response brainwaves."

Aaron shakes his head. "No. No way are we going to capture a LARX agent. No way. Not for your intellectual curiosity, Marta, it'll get us all killed!"

Marta folds her arms, "If you want to find a quick way around the other agents, however many there are now which we don't know, I need to look at the live brain waves. Figure out a way to stop them all quickly so we can-"

"We can what? What do you think we can do to stop them from hunting us? Even if we take down LARX, we won't know what to do next. There's just you and me and maybe this guy," he gestures to Jason, "Three people against the entire organisation, trying to shut it down. It's not going to happen." He snatches the paper from her, handing it back to Jason. "Thanks but no thanks. We're taking our chances here. Find another patsy."

"You don't get to tell me what to do, Cross." She snatches the paper back, "Like it or not, I'm doing this. It's… something I need to set right. No more LARX agents, no more innocent deaths. Isn't that what you want? What this whole thing has been about?"

Aaron takes a deep, cleansing breath. There were dangerous missions and then there were suicidal missions. Which one was Marta on? "Yes but we need to know how to take the whole thing down. We can't leave a loose thread on this. Cut off one head, you need to cut them all off. If we take down the fucking U.S. government's ops programme…" he shakes his head, "Can't be done."

Jason chuckles softly from between them. He's been observing their whole new dance, pulling the strings of tension between Marta and Aaron. "This isn't going to be easy or quick or clean. Even if we take it down, there'll need to be something put in its place." He smiles slowly, "Luckily there's three of us left to take that place and put something better inside it. We're not just taking down what's already there, Cross. We're rebuilding from the ground up. I need you, Marta. Like I said, you're the one with the knowledge of the past and the skills to build a future."

Aaron puts the safety back on the gun. "We can rebuild him, we have the technology?" He grins.

Marta groans but smiles, "I swear to god, you need to watch television from the 21st century, Aaron."

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A/N: So what did you think of our first taste of Jason here? I've been trying to figure out his character for days, it's been driving me crazy...


	10. Chapter 10

So... yeah... this chapter is basically my celebration of getting to 10 chapters without an idea block. I apologise for nothing here; absolutely nothing. I'm not even going to warn you, seriously. This is me thanking everyone for all the reviews and hopefully this'll be enough for now. Don't worry, there's more chapters to come... literally :D

Dedicated to my reviewers and readers. I love you all. If you can leave me some more, 11 will come quicker.

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10

Marta's getting more and more excited.

She's never seen anything like it. These numbers and codes are incredible. She's not about to let Aaron take something like this away from her, not as long as the heart of a scientist beats in her chest. Marta knows what she can do with live data from an actual agent, a living test subject to measure and encode, to find some way to turn it around as an advantage and give them all the leg up they need to find their way around the system trying to hunt them. Except… except Aaron's being… well, Aaron. She's learnt so much from him but she's also learnt about him.

The way he thinks and acts are ingrained in his morality and he won't subject her to the vicissitudes that warfare and danger will bring to her. She doesn't care. Marta doesn't care about danger or guns or bombs or death anymore. She wants to give them all an answer, prove her worth to him. She has to do this, has to find the answer and _own _it like she did before. Her whole world is ingrained in her intellect. She doesn't have the skills of Aaron or even Jason but she does have skills they don't. Maybe they're threatened by her. She kind of hopes they are.

Marta loves the chase. She grins widely as she stares at the paper; Aaron's pacing a little, staring at her. It's a little strange, seeing him so agitated in the presence of another man who had skills as good as, maybe even a little better than him. He was jealous or threatened or some male bullshit she doesn't care about out loud but secretly loves. She's only human, after all, and she's always entertained the fantasy of two men fighting over her, even if Jason wasn't fighting to romance her. It's a little Neanderthal-ish but she smiles nonetheless. Marta folds the paper back up and sees him still pacing. Aaron's calm, cocky demeanour has disintegrated into his male pride. Marta sighs happily and shakes her head, fed up with his wounded martyr routine. "Will you stop pacing like a caged lion? You'll wear a hole in the floor."

"Now who's bossy?" he crosses his arms over his still bare chest and sits on the edge of a table. She loves it when she wins.

She takes a breath. Marta looks up at Jason, and says softly, "Okay, I'll go with you."

That's when all hell breaks loose.

Aaron's head snaps up from where he's been sulking and his eyes go dark. He doesn't like it, that's plain to see. Well if she's just a desk jockey to him, a person pretending to know what he's been through, she's better off with Jason. Even walking into a trap is better than staying with someone who doesn't respect her. Suddenly, Aaron strides over to her and hauls her up by her arm. "Excuse us for a second." He says and pulls her into the little washroom, hurling the door shut with a thud and a shudder. His whole body is tense and in pain from her taunting. Marta wants him to see that she can do this, she has _worth_.

"What?" she crosses her own arms, pouting a little. He looks at her, up and down, his gaze dragging across her body like a starving man. Aaron takes a half step towards her and kisses her passionately, grabbing her whole form into his. Everything important, everything that should and could be important, melts into nothing. It doesn't matter anymore. They have unfinished business to attend to. Jason Bourne had shown up at just the wrong moment. "Aaron?" she mutters against his lips, "What are you-"

"For once, just once, Doc…stop thinking." He goes back to kissing her, his hands moving up and down her back. He's good at this game.

"I thought you were mad at me." She mutters between frantic kisses. His lips crawl down to her neck and bite down. She gasps.

"I am." He doesn't stop. God, this feels _so good_. Pent up tension had boiled over into anger and jealousy but this? This is heaven pressing up against her. Why was she allowed heaven now? "I'm so mad at you." He mutters again.

She digs her nails into his arms, "Why?" She knew why. She just wants to hear him say the words to get her little selfish thrill.

"Because you're mine." He growls and attacks her lips again, spinning her around to face the wall. She can feel his body press up against her back, his _whole_ body hard against her. Marta pants. "I know I can't tell you what to do or who to go with. I can't tell you what to think or feel…" his hand reaches around and grabs her clothed breast in one palm, his lips at her neck again, his arm wrapped around her waist to make her stay. "But I know you're mine. You know it, I know it. He knows it."

"That's it?" she turns her head and moans as his fingers work magic on her breast. "You're jealous."

"Possessive."

"Narcissistic." She cries out as the hand on her waist drifts into her pants and cups her crotch a little. Oh fuck, she's screwed now. "I have to go with him, Aaron. It could mean the difference between everything."

"You keep looking for this perfect life, but it won't come, Marta." The hand on her chest suddenly dives up and under her bra and vest.

She cries out again and hopes Jason can't hear. Marta knows Aaron wants him to hear. "What's wrong with wanting a perfect life?" she bites her lip hard to keep from crying out in pleasure. "I know you want a home."

Aaron presses his fingers into her core, over her panties. Marta's knees buckle a little. "I want you. Nothing more or less. If you can't feel that, you don't know me at all. I'm not soccer practise and white picket fences, Marta, I'm guns and bombs and danger and death. You don't get a perfect life when you fuck death."

She pants slowly, shaking her head, "You are more than that and you know it. You're not just a soldier or a lab rat or a flying monkey, you're…" she cries out again as his hand slides her panties aside. "Aaron. You're the reason I'm alive."

"You're the reason _I'm_ alive. I owe you." He twists her nipple and squeezes her breast. She can't let him crack her yet.

"I owe you too." She growls and grinds her ass back into his crotch. If she's going to go down, it'll be swinging.

"I won't let you do this just to prove something stupid, Marta." There's an edge to his voice and she smirks inwardly that she put it there.

She cries out as his fingers pull up slightly and dive under her soaked panties. This man's the devil and she's his queen. "It's not stupid. I'm not just a desk jockey, Aaron. I know I was before but I'm not now and I need to… fuck… I need to prove it."

He moans slightly. His finger is caressing her clit and causing her whole body to shudder in electric sparks of pleasure. "You don't need to prove anything, Marta."

Her vision starts to melt. She's never felt so connected, so in tune and alive with another man. He's putting nothing less than all of his attention to her. She loves him, loves him, loves this.

"I need to do this for us." She cries out again as he plunges two fingers inside her body and stills them. So this is it. Bring her to the edge to make her acquiesce? She's not giving up.

"I don't trust him." He growls.

"Neither do I." she mutters. His fingers thrust in and out just slightly, enough to make her tingle. "I trust you."

He kisses her neck, "I need you to be safe." The heel of his hand presses down onto her clit and she screams out a little, her knees sinking. She grabs anything she can to stay upright.

"I need you to stop wrapping me in cotton wool."

He chuckles. "Believe me; I know you can take it." He bites down on her neck, twists her nipple between his calloused fingers, and thrusts his hand into her once.

Marta comes hard, crying out his name. Huge sobs of pleasure wrack over her body and he pants. "Aaron…"

He kisses her softly. "We're going to shut them down, rebuild and then, Marta Shearing… if we live… I'm going to make you mine all over again."

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A/N: so... yeah... That just happened. I'm still not sorry. Review anyway? :)

A/N2: Also had an idea for Aaron/Marta/Jason fic that's way too dirty to be put here. Lord save me, it's all Renner's fault.


	11. Chapter 11

WOW. From the response to the last chapter, I am absolutely blown away. I love you all! *group hug!* Thank you all so so much. I have to say I love writing this fic and this chapter in particular I adore. Hopefully my Jason's improved a bit from his last outing. I love this fandom so much.

But for now, here's my personal favourite chapter so far, chapter 11! Please read and review! :)

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11

Aaron condemned. He's fairly sure he is because there's no way he should ever be allowed to have perfection writhing around him. Only condemned men get a final penance and this is his; it's a fucking brilliant one. She feels like fire underneath him; he never expected her to be so responsive to his fingers, to the way he manipulates and plays her body. She came so easily around his attentions. Aaron smirks as he realises that when he finally gets to take her and worship her, she'll be blessing the day she was born. He's not going to waste any opportunity to make her see God again or at least scream out his name. Those little whimpers and pleads, the way she bites her lip and moans at the same time, the way her body contorts in pleasure as he makes her come… they are not meant for the eyes of the unworthy and yet he is somehow allowed a reprieve from his sins. Marta Shearing can do wicked things to his sensibilities and wisdom.

Aaron keeps kissing her neck, feeling her muscles still clamping in spasms around his thick fingers. She burns and he loves it. He wants to do it again and again, just watching and hearing her come, crying out his name over and over and over and over. He curses the fact there's no mirror in the washroom; he wants to stare into her eyes as he gives her a tenth of what he's going to eventually. She's more than just perfection, she's imperfection and that makes her seamless to him. He can feel her knees start to buckle and he kisses a tender spot behind her ear. She whimpers and he smiles. Oh, he's going to play so cockily after this. "Marta." he mutters, his other hand now holding her stomach flat to him, "You know something?" she shakes her head and he thinks maybe she hasn't regained the power of her tongue just yet. "That's just the beginning."

She whimpers again, "Jason would've heard that." Marta lays her head back onto his shoulder and he kisses her temple.

"I know." He kisses down to her ear, "I also know that turns you on. I can feel it, Marta…" He presses the heel of his hand onto her clit again and she moans a little, grabbing his arm and digging her nails in. The pain makes him seethe and growl. "You're not so innocent and naïve are you? You had them all fooled, even me…"

She chuckles and reaches up, grabbing his hair, "I never said I was naïve. You assumed. In science, we never assume, Aaron, haven't I taught you anything?"

Aaron nips his teeth across her ear, just because he can. "You've got a lot to teach me, _Doc._ And I've got a lot left to teach you." He gently pulls his fingers from her body and brings them to his lips, sucking off her wetness. Fuck, she tastes like salt and sea and sweetness, lighting his senses and inflaming his passions. Nectar of the gods, really… "But not today." She watches him licking his fingers, eyes drawn and heavy with lust again. He loves how gold her irises become when she's turned on. It makes her so easy to read. He remembers the same sparks when they argue; she's more than he's ever thought of and Aaron's more than just _willing_ to learn her.

He wants to wipe that smirk from her face, sexy as it is. "You've got the patience of a saint, Agent Cross."

"Or a mad man." He licks his lips, spinning her suddenly. He pushes her roughly up against the wall and she gasps. He's not being gentle. Gentle is for people with time on their hands and right now they have none of it. He kisses her hard and plunges his tongue into her mouth, pinning her wrists with one of his hands. It was only 24 minutes ago that they were like this, pinned together and falling over that treacherous edge between worlds. She moans and he laps it up.

"You're going to be my death, aren't you?" she mutters, licking her own lips. He kisses her again and presses a hand between her thighs; Bourne be damned. She cries out. "I don't give a fuck anymore."

"Darlin', I doubt you ever did." He smiles and keeps kissing her, dominating her and she fights back. He loves her, he loves her...

"If you guys are done with having sex, we need to get going!" Moment ruined again by the real world according to Jason. Aaron hates him. He has this innate ability to spoil a brilliant opportunity with his incessant need to do something that isn't kissing Marta senseless.

She sighs and chews her lip again, "We should go. It could be a long time before we get to shelter."

Aaron groans, "Since when did you become so level headed?" he arches an eyebrow at her and she smiles.

"You taught me, remember?" He lets her down from the wall, feeling bereft without her. When the hell did he get so needy? It's not exactly conducive to agent behaviour. He'll have to decide eventually which he is; the agent or Aaron, but not today and not before his mission is accomplished. "You're right. Just… give me a second here." She presses a soft kiss to his lips and ducks from his arms, opening the door and going into their room.

Jason's standing in the doorway, arms crossed and looking down at his feet. Bastard. He says plainly; "Yes I know you're coming with us. No, we're not going to be friends, and yes I will make sure she's protected if anything happens. When something happens." Perhaps Bourne's already got a better read on Aaron than he has of Bourne. Level the playing field.

Aaron bends over the washbasin, not looking at him, "I know you lost someone, probably a lot of someones. I don't have much of a shot at keeping her but even a shot is worth trying." He glances to the side, jaw set. "I will not compromise her safety for anyone or anything." Jason's eyes rise to meet his own and Aaron sees his own future. Aaron doesn't have much of a chance in keeping Marta safe and unharmed. If he's even more honest, there's no chance of it at all. All of his trust in her life after his death will go to a man he doesn't trust. It's spelling for disaster.

"I know. She's… very opinionated." Jason nods, "Opinionated is what'll keep her alive in the long run."

Aaron takes a breath, closing his eyes for a second, "You have a plan or do I need to do that too?"

"I have a way out of the mainland for now. There's an old factory nearby; it's deserted. I've been there a while now, scavenging what I need since they sent me after you." He smiles a little, "They gave me all the Intel they had on you. Just handed it over on a silver platter." Jason looks him up and down, "I figure they think you're a bigger threat to them than I am."

Aaron smiles to himself. "Yeah. I figure that too."

Jason closes the door slightly as he steps inside the little washroom, "I need to know all you know about LARX agents, the more I know…"

"Yeah, I get it. The more you know, the more you don't have to discover yourself." He straightens up, turning to lean against the basin with his arms crossed, "LARX is ruthless. It's conditioning and viralling and training. Leaving your life behind because you don't give a fuck about it anymore. It's what they took from me, what they took from you, only LARX agents don't give a shit; there's no empathy, no borders for them. I've heard of other agents being ruthless but the one we saw shot at children and women and teenagers, shot bullets like… well, Terminator." He chuckles, "It's completely insane. We just… we can't go actively chasing after them, Bourne. They'll take us out before we take the first step."

"She took one out." He says simply, studying Aaron like he's underneath one of Marta's microscopes again.

"What if we get two at once? I got a bullet in my thigh and Marta nearly broke her ribs last time. We were lucky."

The corners of Jason's mouth twitch up, "Maybe it's all we need. I've got nothing left to lose."

Aaron looks out of the slightly open door and sees Marta packing up their bag. Her hair falls down over her eyes and she tucks it back with her fingertips. She chews on her lip again and holds her back lightly as she thinks. He can't stop looking at her; he's a moth to a flame going to burn him. Jason doesn't have anything to lose.

"I do."

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A/N: and now for the announcement! Last time, I asked you guys about a fic of Jason/Aaron/Marta (admittedly completely dirty, dirtier than Aaron and Marta have been on here). I'm happy to announce I am working on this fic and I'll be posting it on another fanfic site soon and will post a link to it here if I can. It'll probably be on AO3 or my livejournal account :)

A/N2: And I mean dirty.


	12. Chapter 12

Thank you for all the reviews :) each one is a wonderfully gift wrapped present :D I'm taking a bit of a time step with Marta and Aaron here intentionally because I think they have still a lot of unresolved issues individually and together so we're going to have some angsty bits with feisty always needing an answer Marta trying to find the reason for the angst.

I hope you like and please, please keep reviewing :)

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12

Something's got to give.

Jason's hide out turns out to be the wet dream of a serial killer and Marta wonders vaguely whether Jason's going to kill them after all, if they've been lured into some trap by a mad man. They've only been there a few days and already it feels like Aaron's drifting away from her. He's put so much distance between them; she's beginning to think he's doing it intentionally. Their touches, their kisses have stopped. The way he looks at her is more of heart breaking sadness than any kind of love he spoke – or didn't speak – of.

They'd left the boat and powered a whole day through dirt roads and shanty towns to this abandoned, remote, completely fucking creepy place where there held the biggest arsenal of weapons Marta has ever seen. Aaron had practically drooled over the guns, ammo, protective gear and even one that could only really be described as a medieval mace. Seeing this place, this dark and dank hovel of a nest got to her. Marta doesn't like it; she's beginning to feel more and more like the terrorist they described her in American newspapers they found while trekking through the more urban parts.

She hates that Aaron doesn't hold her hand as much now. She actually can't remember the last time he even looked at her. It's all Jason's fault, she's sure. Aaron was bottling everything up and it's going to come blowing out in a big, big way. Nest behaviour in trained killers causes psychological harm… she thinks.

He'd told her just a few days ago, while he had his fingers deep inside her, that he wanted her to be his but what the hell does that mean? Marta doesn't know eloquent speeches of protracted love, she knows hard facts and changing variables, conducting experiments and conclusively proving valid hypotheses; she has no idea what being made his actually means. Is he going to marry her? Is he planning a happily ever after? Neither of those is possible anymore.

Marta sighs as she goes over Jason's other data sets, rubbing her eyes as the isolation gets to her. Aaron, the real Aaron, is left behind on their happy little fishing boat and this almost-ruthless, almost-emotionless robotic man had taken his place. He still protects her, he still jumps in front of her at cracking branches his mind perceives as threats, he still makes smart ass remarks to get a rise out of her but… he touches her accidentally and then leaps back as if he's burnt by her. She's fucking sick of being alone. He's acting the same way when Peter left her alone. No word, no note. Just left and now he's dead with the other Outcome agents. He'd left her in that empty, broken house with the anger of never knowing _why._

Marta doesn't want _this_ Aaron. She wants the man she knew back on the boat. The man who made her bend to his will and caused her to fight back, fight for dominance and deference, fight for their friendship and for her life. He'd made her want to be better and now he's leaving her alone while he plays soldier with his toys with Jason. Fuck him. Fuck him for making her feel alone again. When you love a broken man, that's what you become too. She wants to burn Jason's serial killer hidey hole to the ground like she did to Peter's tombstone of a house.

There's a sharp thud in front of her and Marta nearly jumps out of her skin. A bag full of weapons is beside her on the floor, like it were a sack of presents. Aaron stands above her, towering.

"Didn't mean to scare you." He mutters and starts rifling through the guns, pulling out weapon after weapon after weapon. "How's it going?"

"Slow." She says and goes back to her papers, in full scientist mode. Marta grits her teeth at the sound of cocking guns. She should be used to them by now.

"Go quicker." He corrects the sight on a few, still not looking at her.

"Well fuck you too, sir." She rolls her eyes and gets up, going to another pile in another box. Jason had gathered so much information, so much to go off. You'd think she'd be happy with numbers and data but it's been a living hell. "I'm sorry I interrupted your happy gun time."

She doesn't want to break. She's not going to break. God, she hopes he breaks first.

"Just need the figures, Doc…" he doesn't call her Marta anymore. She hates it.

"What exactly are you and memory loss Rambo doing all day while I'm working?" she says through gritted teeth.

He steps back; she can hear his clunking footsteps on the lino. "We're working too."

"On what?" she doesn't look at him; she's pretending to read the data. Playing games is their new way of toeing the line.

"Work." He's standing right behind her now; she can feel him next to her, "Building up an arsenal for when it all goes down."

"War." She swallows, "Just call it what it is, Agent Cross. It's war. You're going into war."

"It's how we survive Doc."

"Don't call me that." She mutters. He doesn't hear her.

"It's how men like Jason and me…"

"You are nothing like Jason." She spits the word and spins; he's barely an inch away from her. He's got her cornered like a victim. She is not a victim, goddamn it. "You aren't anything like him, Aaron. You're warm and… merciful and there's so much missing in you right now, I might as well be talking to Jason for all you're giving me."

"Marta…"

She sees red. Dark red burning anger, hurt, loneliness, evil burning inside her. She pulls her hand back so quickly and slaps him as hard as she can. So hard it hurts her hand and reverberates up her arm. It pisses her off even more that Aaron barely flinches. "Don't call me that. Fuck, don't call me that unless you mean it." She bites back her acidic tears. "All you've done is push and push and push since we got here. Why?"

He doesn't answer her. He just stares at her, his eyes a little cooler, a little paler than she's seen them. Marta shakes her head, "Know what? Fuck you."

"Marta, wait…" Aaron says as she starts to step away, "You can't just leave this."

"Watch me." She bends to pick up her backpack and he grabs her arm hard. "Get off." Even Marta doesn't recognise her own voice now.

"Stop this." He says softer than he's been in days. "Please."

"Well since you asked so nicely." Sarcasm drips from her pores. She tries to wrestle her arm from his grip unsuccessfully. "Ever since you set foot off that fucking boat, all you've done is make me feel worthless of your time. You push a door hard enough, Aaron, you know what you get? A door back in the face."

"He told me." Aaron blurts out suddenly like his sewn up lips had been cut by her curiosity. "He told me what he did to the people he loved. To the women he loved, Marta… I'm worse than him. I've done everything wrong in my life and you're going to pay the price for me loving you, one way or another."

She shakes her head, "You're not him." Marta can't believe it. She won't believe Aaron would hurt her.

"No, I'm _worse. _I'm so much worse, I can't tell you things I've done because you'd look at me like Byer used to look at me, like a bomb that needs defusing." He shakes his head as her arm starts to hurt from his desperation, "You can't love me, Marta. It's not good for you."

She looks at his hand on her and then back to his pleadingly blue eyes. "Can you let me decide if it's worth it?"

Aaron smiles a little, "You've never known what it can do to you, loving men like me."

"Actually… I do." She swallows. "His name was Peter. Outcome Agent Number Three, Peter Jelinski." Marta looks at him and sees sparks of something. "I loved him. He left me. Now he's dead and I never got an answer, Aaron. I never got to know _why_ I wasn't as good as the programme, why he went back to them to god knows where. Why did he just wake up one morning and stop loving me?" she blinks and tears stream down her cheeks, tears that burn for poor dead Peter and lost kind-hearted Aaron. "He left me like you're doing now, except you can't because we're stuck being hunted by Byer's attack dogs." She shakes her head, she's sick of being treated like she knows nothing of men like him. "Don't you dare fucking assume I don't know what falling in love with broken men can do to me, Aaron. I _love_ you but I'm not enough."

Aaron just blinks, his eyes darting away from hers. "He didn't stop thinking about you. Not ever. Neither can I and it's scaring the shit out of me."

"What?" she shakes her head, not understanding, like a bucket of ice has been tipped over her head. "Outcome Agents don't...?"

"I met one, remember. Just one, I told you." He swallows and looks at her, reaching up to cradle her face, "You're the girl he loved? Oh fucking hell, Marta. Of course it's you. No man can help but -"

"Aaron." She grips his arms in a desperate plea, "You knew him?"

"Yes. He was like Jason is. Cold, distant, distrustful. He was nothing like I expected. I thought the girl he loved was dead, he was so defeated."

"Dead to him." She mutters, looking down. She hadn't loved Peter for a long time. Everything had brought him bubbling up to her volcanic surface and burnt hers and Aaron's whatever-ship into ash along with it.

Aaron's hands cup her chin and make her meet his gaze. "He was a foolish idiot."

She meets his gaze, "Aaron, if he was an idiot, what the hell does that make you?"

"A monster."

Marta just looks at him, shaking her head, "Not a monster." She looks into his eyes, mere inches from his lips, "Not a monster, Aaron. You don't have to end up like Jason and Peter, hurting the people you love, ripping out their hearts to play with. You can just love, okay? Just love and that's enough." She claims his lips hard with hers, "I'm not giving up on you and me."

"You're the warrior, Marta." He mutters as he kisses her back, and she knows he's never going to stop. "Not me."

Marta kisses him even harder. A man like Aaron loves a woman like Marta and it's just that simple.

Something good is given.

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A/N: So yes, if you're wondering, next chapter is going to be so so so good for everyone. ;-) I hope you liked 'don't fuck with me' Marta.


	13. Chapter 13

Well, this is it; the chapter I think we've all been waiting for. 13 might be unlucky for some but I know a couple who are getting lucky tonight. As always please read and review, love to you all. We're picking up the pace after this chapter...

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13

Most vivid amongst the memories of this day is of the sun setting and Aaron thinking she's more beautiful than nature. He kisses her and kisses her so deeply, he wants to get lost inside of it and pretty much does. Aaron's waited so long to have her to himself; no boundaries or interruptions, no fear or trepidation. Fuck life and its shortness. He's tried forgetting about his love, he's tried pushing her away, he's tried so fucking hard not to think about her. Even the wrinkles on her nose when she doesn't understand something have been driving him rat-assed_ crazy_ since they left the fishing boat and came to this place. Somehow this vixen, this wanton, brazen wicked woman, made it impossible for Aaron to forget her, hate her, pretend she's non-existent. Marta is this itch he can't scratch because a wound will appear later and scar but for the microcosm of a second, it's going to feel so fucking good that it'll be worth the pain later. He hopes. Aaron growls in his throat as he presses her up against a window, sitting her on a ledge: _snipers come and get them if you dare._ She's got a lust for danger and him, it seems, and he's going to give it to her. Hard.

That beautiful girl, _his_ wonderful girl with the heart of a fighter inside her… He won't let her get scared, though she might, because he'll protect her until he's dying beside her.

He runs both of his rough palms up her thighs and his lips graze her neck in a bare glance of delight. She shudders and he smirks, "You're kind of easy, huh?"

"I spent forever waiting for a man who couldn't give up the game. I'm not a patient woman."

"Oh I can tell." He smirks still, thumbs running circles on her inner thighs, "It's all just been foreplay, hasn't it?" He grabs her around the waist and hauls her to the edge of the ledge, "All been leading here."

"A serial killer's murder den?" she chuckles.

His look darkens, tinged with excitement around the edges. He's playing her game to win. "I am a serial killer."

"Only technically."

"Hell of a technicality, Doc." He bends and kisses her neck, pulling the buttons on her shirt apart easily, popping each one with a deft finger. "You know what I am and you still want me? Why?"

"No..." she shakes her head, gasping as he kisses her cleavage. "I spent all of our relationship measuring you, trying to find out what makes your body work the way it does, why you're seemingly impervious to pain, why you don't scar easily. But honestly, Aaron, I counted down the days until I saw you again." She lets out a slow, deep breath as his teeth scrape along her breast. "You were a tricky bastard but you made the day go quicker."

"So that's why you got so pissed off that I was always late." He can taste her excitement.

"I'm not a patient woman." She reiterates. "I know what I want."

He kisses her deeply and pulls her down from the ledge, taking her hand like his missing puzzle piece. "Come with me."

He'd follow her willingly anywhere but now he's the one leading her up the maze of stairs at a run, laughing softly, "Keep up, come on!"

"I'm trying!" she calls from behind him. He kicks open a rusted old door and pulls her into twilight sunset skies, Marta immediately looking up in wonderment. "Whoa."

"I know." He looks up too, still holding her hand, "They can take everything else away from us but not even they can touch _this, _Marta." He beams at the dark blue starting to pull down upon the setting sun, "I can take a lot of pain for a bit of beauty."

She turns and claims him in another kiss, pulling at his clothes frantically. His hands run down her suddenly bare arms and she smiles. "There's a lot they can take away too but I don't give a fuck anymore, Aaron. I'm done waiting."

"Good." He bends and scoops her into his arms, laying her down onto warm metal. "If we had a bed, I'd lay you on that." She deserves the best. Always has.

"Who needs a bed?" she smiles up at him and he looks down at her, running a fingertip down her nose.

"Who needs anything?" he kisses her passionately, throwing all he's ever felt for her, the pain and hunger and darkness and light into one simply searing kiss that melts their flesh together. How can something so simple feel so good? Maybe when it's love, or feels like love, there's only good. He's still hoping.

He peels off the last of her ratty old clothes and just stares at her, eyes brazenly peeling down her body as bawdy as he ever is. "I don't think this could be any better, do you, Marta?"

"I can think of one way." Her lip gets dragged between her teeth and he captures it before she sets it free, kissing all the way down her body. "Aaron." She moans as he sucks on the tender flesh of her breast.

"Look at the sky." He mumbles, his mouth full of _her_, "Just take it in." Aaron lies down between her parted thighs, his fingertips tracing Russian script, Arabic, French, Mandarin… the same three words over and over again on her stomach, hips, knees. Afrikaans, Portuguese… over and over and over. He kisses up her thighs and tastes heaven between them. His fingers hadn't felt half of what he's feeling now, her moans and cries and pleads coming thick and fast. "Marta." He mumbles, sucking on her clit like a starving man.

"Aaron, god… how did you get so …fuck…" He almost laughs but the sweetness on his tongue is taking away his ability to concentrate on trivialities like words.

It's a slow burn. She threads her fingers through his hair and tugs sharply to make him feel that much more alive and yes he _loves_ her for it. Aaron loves her more than he should be allowed to love, if he's delving into his own sins and coming out blind. There's a lot wrong in the world but never _this_. He slides two fingers inside her easily and crooks them up, making her scream. She comes almost instantly, flooding his tongue with wetness where he can lap it up delicately. Marta pants and he loves that it heaves her chest. Okay, he's kind of a pervert but she's the one who makes him like that. Can't blame a man for wanting such an amazingly flawed perfect girl. He climbs back over her, his cock hard and aching to finally, _finally _slide into her there as the stars start to peek out from behind white clouds. Innocence was lost a long time ago.

"Aaron, if we don't… if we don't get another chance to do this again, if this plan goes to hell fast, I just want to say thank you."

He frowns, "I'm the one who's thanking you. You can't Bogart my thank you." He gently pulls her hands above her head. "I'm the man."

"Oh like fuck you are." She groans and rolls them over suddenly, winding him. "You did not just get all _male_ on me."

He grins widely, "I did, didn't I?" Aaron rolls his hips so she slides onto his lap, "What you gonna do about it, Doc?"

Marta smirks and runs her blunted nails down his chest, unrelenting in their landscaping. "You can be such a dick."

"Comes with the territory. I thought you liked my-"

"Don't interrupt me, Cross." Her eyebrow quirks and he loves seeing her so fucking in control, strong, dominant. She takes him over. He doesn't know Shakespeare and neither does she but this girl is one for writers and war criminals to stare at in awe and rethink their ideal woman. He'd always loathed shrinking violets and obedient women beaten down and controlled by assholes. His dream girl was here, on his lap, dominating a man who could kill her so easily. "I'm not going to hurt you. Much." She lifts up her hips and sinks onto his rock hard cock.

If Aaron's a dead man walking, he'd be happy to die by Marta's hand. She's tight, so tight, and hot like the proverbial fire pits have already scalded his skin. Aaron doesn't scar. "Fucking hell, Marta." He groans, "Move."

She's got her nails deep into his upper arms. She's having trouble keeping control too. "I don't respond well to bossiness." She mutters, lifting up half an inch and stopping. "Beg me."

Aaron laughs. "No." he's got to keep some pride, right? The vixen, wanton wicked woman, purposefully clenches her muscles around his cock and he bites his cheek to keep from giving in. He's had a lot of lessons in torture endurance but this is the worst.

"I said beg me." She lifts up an inch and stops again. "Don't you want me Aaron?" she pouts a little, moving up again.

"God, you're going to be the death of me." He thrusts up and both cry out into the darkening sky.

"Fuck!" she cries, "Fuck, do that again, that feels amazing, I don't care anymore." He thrusts up again and she clenches around him, so hot and tight and wet he _wants_ to die surrounded by glory. "YES!"

Their hips crash and collide together, his hands, now free, are clutching at her back and breasts, hips and ass as she leans over him in a roaring rush of persistent pleasure that builds and builds and won't ever stop because it's perfect, _so perfect,_ even in their tiny window of happiness that looks up to the sky. He kisses her frantically and rolls them over again, thrusting into her willing, hot body again and again. No man can resist this woman and he's only a man. Aaron loves her, loves her… loves…

They come together, gasping and moaning and shaking with the force of so much passionate build-up that it burns both of them. He looks out to his left, panting and still coming inside her body when he sees the darkness surround them, the silver stars coming out to shine with the moon. Aaron pants and presses short kisses to every blush he can still see on her skin. La petite morte.

"Marta… will…"

A bullet shot rings out from below them and their happiness is over in a flash of gunpowder.


	14. Chapter 14

Hello :) Thanks for everyone who liked the last chapter! I've been ill the last two days but I'm feeling better today so I thought I'd get this done before the last chapter of my other fic and/or this cold takes my head into self-pity mode. This is a chapter inspired by the song _Gorecki_ by Lamb. It has to be the most haunting love song I've ever heard: if you've not listened to it, please go to youtube and look it up. I love it. (If you're a Torchwood viewer, you should recognise it!)

Anyway, this is were we get into the grittier fighting-for-their-lives part of the story. I'm not sure how many chapters are left but I think it'll be about 20, maybe 25 if I have some brainwaves.

Thanks for reading and please review :)

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14

_All I've known, all I've done, all I've felt was leading to this_

It's broken but she can fix it. She knows she can fix anything, right? Marta panics and looks up at Aaron, expecting him to be dead, expecting blood or maybe it's her that's been shot and she's got a delayed reaction to pain and dying. Oh shit. It's all gone to hell in a hand basket too quickly for her liking; weren't they allowed just a little reprieve? Just half an hour to enjoy something _before _one of them – probably her – died in a whimper of glory. Thirteen exams over four years seem a century ago now. Marta grips his arm, not daring herself to look, "Am I dead?" she thinks love and death go hand in hand at this point. "Aaron?" she looks up finally and sees him, ashen faced and _angry._ Why is he angry? "Aaron?!" she smacks him. His eyes snap down to hers and he's an agent once again.

"Get dressed." He says, getting up and grabbing his pants, pulling them on quicker than he'd taken them off, "It came from downstairs. It's not Jason; they found us."

Fuck.

"LARX?" she mutters, pulling her clothes back on as her heart rate thunders in her chest, "They found us?" this is getting screwed in the bad way.

"Yes. And I'm going to kill them. We're not ready." Marta's steadily getting more and more pissed off as he keeps talking but saying nothing, "I need you to stay here. Barricade the door behind me and don't move."

"Like fuck I am." She looks at him, indignant. "Use me, I can be bait. Lure them up here so we can corner them and take them out."

He shakes his head, cocking his handgun and going to the roof door, "This isn't the time for heroics, Doc. We could be facing all the LARX agents and we don't know how many there are now. Could be 1, could be 100." He listens at the door and she can hear gunshots again.

"Jason!" she starts to call but Aaron clamps a hand around her mouth, his jaw set in determined anger.

"Don't give our position away." He whispers so softly she has to strain to hear him. "You know what they do, Marta, you've seen it. They won't spare you because you're a woman, because you're not an agent. They will kill you and use your body to torture me."

She shrugs his hand off, "I've killed one before, I can do it again." She reaches for the door handle but he stops her and pushes her up against the brick wall too roughly for it to be exciting, "Aaron, stop it."

"You got lucky." He stares into her eyes and she can't see warmth. Is that all she is? Lucky? "You got lucky last time, you won't be again." He presses his gun into her stone cold hands, "Stay here. Shoot anyone that comes through that door you think is LARX, even if it's not. I mean it." He presses a kiss to her lips that feels like a goodbye and dashes through the door, leaving her standing there with a gun in her hand.

What does she do? She can't just… be a nothing. He calls her a warrior but he doesn't mean it, obviously. She's not going to just stand there and wait to kill or get killed. Marta tries the roof door but it won't budge. _Fucker's barricaded it. _She thinks hard, has to find a way down, a way out. She goes to the edge of the roof, looking down. It's a three storey building, 30ft drop straight down. No way could a human body survive that drop; if she landed feet first, her fibulas would snap upon impact and thrust into her kneecaps, severing her femoral artery as the bones break. If she landed on her front or back, it's instant game over. Sometimes she hates being a scientist, knowing the outcome to these situations. If she jumped, she'd be dead in under a minute. Marta looks along the building and smirks as she sees the half rotten trellis with dead ivy crawling up it and walks over, gun still clutched in her stone cold hand. She's doing anything it takes to save him or die alongside him. She kind of hopes it's not the latter. Marta closes her eyes and climbs into the ledge on all fours as she hears gunshots and yelling from both Aaron and Jason. She's right by broken windows that run all the way from bottom to top along the building, giving her a window into the fishbowl. "Breathe." She mutters to herself as she puts the first foot on the trellis, testing its weight. "Just breathe." Heart thundering, Marta swings her other leg over and puts it on the trellis too, still gripping the ledge of the building with one determined hand. Slowly she takes her feet down until she can't keep hold of that stone anymore and puts the gun in the back of her pants.

The landscape is almost painted with darkness now the sun has set; the only light coming from the stars and the moon and making it glow like a target. If this were reality, it'd be a horror movie, she thinks. Marta hears a man crying out in grunted pain and wonders which man it is. She sees shadows inside the building and pants as her arms begin to burn. _Don't look down._ She has to remind herself over and over again that it's for _him_, to stop being a fucking damsel in distress and be the warrior he needs. Marta almost cries out as she loses her footing and has to put it on a window ledge to keep herself steady. She keeps going down, closing her eyes and smelling the dead ivy she's trusting with her life. Her legs manage to get her down to the third storey window, the dim light bulb inside flickering so much that it looks like it's on fire inside. She can smell the fumes of sparks through the broken glass, a hole where the window should be.

And then she sees him.

His left arm has a jagged slice cut out of it and he's limping a little but thank god he's alive. He doesn't see her and runs down the staircase, spotting something and shooting. Marta sees an agent behind Aaron, baring his gun and readying the shot. She doesn't think – it's an easy choice, after all. Kill the target or hope Aaron's skills are good enough to see black on black. She slides her gun through the hole and fires twice, shooting the man dead through his thigh and his stomach; even if he's not LARX, he's a threat. Aaron's head snaps up and he sees her, calling out. If he was angry before, he's livid with her now.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" he runs up, trying to get the window to slide up but it sticks, "I told you to stay where you were, I told you to-"

"Does it matter now?! I just saved your life, I think I deserve a bit of credit!" Her left wrist is bleeding from the glass cutting where she shot through it, "Don't bother with the window, it's all stuck tight." She pants as her footing slips slightly.

"Marta, you'll get yourself-" he spins and shoots an agent she hadn't even registered, "You'll get yourself killed."

"I'm a warrior, remember?" she slides her gun back into her pants and retightens her grip on the dead ivy trellis. "I'm going down, I'll meet you there."

She starts going down towards the bottom as he yells out, incensed and still trying to rip the window open, "MARTA!"

Two more steps down and she slices her thigh open with something sharp sticking out of the wood. Pain blossoms almost instantly and blood drips down her leg but she won't stop; this has to be a bad injury if the adrenaline in her bloodstream can't cancel out the pain signals. Marta battles through it and rips her leg back; she cries as it hurts so bad it kills a part of her brain. She repositions her foot and grunts, pressing her head to the brick wall. She's nearly at the second storey window, she can taste it. Come on muscles. "Shit." She mutters as she slips again and the trellis under her hand bends and nearly snaps. "Come on, Doc." She chuckles as she thinks of Aaron on her old table, cracking jokes even though she saw the pain inside him. She grunts and moves down again, reaching the second storey window. Without thinking, she shoots the glass out and fires wildly at the three agents inside, hitting one in the arm, one in the stomach and one – rather impressively, she thought – in the neck. She sees Jason going fist to fist with another agent. Jason looks worse than Aaron, his face bloodied with gashes down his arms and thighs, bruises starting to sprout and blood on his vest. Her shaking hand tries to line up a shot but she can't get it focussed when Jason's in the way. "JASON BOURNE!" She cries out and it's enough of a distraction for them both to stop and look at her leaning over to the window. Marta shoots three times, one hitting the agent dead in the forehead; blood spatters all over Jason. Maybe Aaron's right: she's lucky after all.

Jason pulls the gun from the dead man's holster and shoots down the corridor, calling back to her, "You need to get down from there, Doctor Shearing. We've got one LARX in here, and maybe 10 agents left. Tell Cross." He doesn't look at her as he shoots, wiping the blood from his face.

Marta tries wrenching the window up but it doesn't even wiggle. "I'll meet you down on the ground!" she yells but knows he probably can't hear her.

Her leg's starting to go cold under her; it's not exactly a good sign. She can't seem to keep her footing anymore and can't remember what Aaron's eyes look like. God. This is dying isn't it? Marta takes a few deep breaths and keeps crawling down the trellis slowly, her leg like a dead weight now. She hops and grunts as she gets to the first storey window, six or seven feet from the ground. The room inside is bathed in white light, glowing hot and she can see a LARX agent with his hand around Aaron's throat, lifting him from the ground. She snaps from her drowsiness and tries to aim her gun, firing at the LARX agent's ankles. Achilles himself would be proud, even though none of her shots land.

"Come on." She leans her whole weight onto the wall forwards and lays her wrist against jagged glass, beating her head against the brick to stay awake. "Come on." She bites her cheek as pain seems to flood her from toe to top.

His face is going paler and he's struggling to get the upper hand. If she doesn't act now, he's dead and so is she. She takes one deep breath. Do it for him, Marta.

She opens her eyes and shoots the last round in the gun, her last ounce of strength propelling it forward.

Things seem to happen in slow motion. A bullet hits its target and there's a scream of a man in pain as she closes her eyes. She hopes she hasn't hit Aaron but as she starts to lose her grip on the world around her to the pain she's feeling all over her body, she can't tell who she managed to hit. Marta pants and groans, she's been in so much pain for the longest time that the pleasure she'd felt maybe half an hour ago seemed like a distant memory. When she looks back into the white glowing room, thinking it's Heaven, she sees Aaron standing over the LARX agent with a gun trained on the body on the ground. She locks eyes with him and he smiles just a little. Her shot had hit straight to the heart. LARX isn't a match for her it seems. Marta smiles back at Aaron as Jason comes into the room, brandishing a gun. His mouth falls open slightly at the sight of Marta, her hand still leaning against the glass, with the dead man on the floor. She's not a warrior now; she's an agent of Treadstone and Outcome.

Marta tosses the gun inside, "S'empty." She mutters. "I can't…" she tries to yell, putting a bloodied hand on the glass as she loses her footing, grabbing the decayed trellis with both hands. She sees a blur she thinks is Aaron run to the window, a strong hand grabbing her arm as she starts to want to fall. "Aaron?" she looks at him, fighting to stay awake, alive and coherent.

"Don't you dare." She looks past him and sees the second blur of Jason run out the door. "I'm not letting you go that easily."

Marta puts her hand on top of his, her arm still gripping the trellis, "I don't want to die."

"SO DON'T!" he nearly yells, his nails digging into her skin. "Don't die. Stay here, I'm getting you safe one way or another." He's trying to budge the window again. "Marta…"

"Just let go of me and I can climb down." She looks at his hand still gripping her arm. "Trust that I can do this." She nearly whispers.

Aaron's still trying to kick the window in with his knee, get her to safety. "I can do this…" he grunts.

"Agent Cross." She says softly. His eyes meet hers, "Let go of my arm."

He stops dead. Aaron looks at her and she finally remembers the colour of his irises. His fingers, as if they were rooted to her arm, prise off one by one and she can take a breath.

Numbness is bad. Numbness is death. Pain lets you know that you're going to live if you had help: she doesn't. It's all on her shoulders to save herself now.

Marta's too numb.


	15. Chapter 15

I have to say I'm so so sooooo sorry, for how late this is. :-( If you didn't know, I was in hospital for something that completely knocked me for six with the antibiotics and now I'm recovering from a cold too. Today's the first day I wasn't a sneezing machine. :) but thank you all for the reviews on the last chapter, they kept me smiling while I slept for most of the days. You guys are awesomeo! Inspired by an amazing writer out there. You know who you are. :)

This chapter is dedicated to Elliesmeow and everybody who reviewed last chapter. I owe you everything, so I hope you'll like this chapter as a thank you.

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15

It's all happening in slow motion. First, he sees her eyes dull a little from the pain. Then he notices her arms slacken from the other side of the locked window, twitching a little. Reflexes like a gunshot, Aaron runs as fast as he can down to the ground. He can't lose her now. Even if her wound isn't fatal, a fall five feet onto the stone path could crack her skull open. No amount of help he could give her would heal that kind of injury, he'd have to get her to a hospital and rouse their location. No, his only choice is to grab her before she fell to the ground and shattered all his hopes along with her skull; it's not an option. He pumps his legs hard as they can go, despite his aching throat, his cuts, bruises, and twisted tendons snaking a path of pain around his whole body. Aaron can heal; heal quicker than most thanks to a little syringe she pushed into his arm on a cold ice table but this still hurts. He hefts open the heavy iron front door and runs around to the side with the trellis, the long grass staining his khakis wet to the knees with dew. His heart stops. He can't breathe. This is worse than people shooting at him _again_, thinking of her head hitting the ground and her beautiful brains going everywhere… He can't think about that. Aaron won't picture her dead. Outcome forced him to be the assassin who considers every possibility but he will never consider Marta's death an option.

He finally sees her on the side of the building. "Marta!" he shouts out. Her head is pressed into the siding of the house, buried amongst the dead ivy cladding the trellis. Aaron should have realised she'd do something that stupid, that selfless and idiotic as to think she could climb down a building and shoot people on the inside to save him. "Marta, I'm coming up!" he shouts up again and tries to put his feet into the holes on the trellis. Immediately, the whole structure sways and bends.

Marta's scream of fear rips through him like a bolt of lightning, leaving fractal scars along his arms. "No!" he can hear her panting, her body taut to the swaying structure, "Get off, you're too heavy!"

He's already jumped down, calculating exactly what to do. "Marta, you need to jump off!"

She twists around and stares at him, yelling, "Are you fucking crazy?!" she looks down, "That's stone, I'll die!"

"Not jump down, jump out!" he calls up, "You'll land on the grass!"

She lays her head backwards, looking out as if calculating his idea, whether it's even possible. Aaron knows it's an insane thing but damn it, that trellis is more rotten the closer to the ground it got. If she slipped, she'd be dead. It's her only chance and he needs her to trust that she can do it. Marta adjusts her feet and one slips. "Fuck it, fine! If I die, I'm coming back to haunt you, Aaron Cross! You won't get a moment's rest!" she mumbles something he can't hear.

Oh god. His heartbeat's in his throat, the whole world around him going silent. He has no idea where Jason is either but he doesn't care. Marta grabs onto a sturdier pole of trellising and he can see her close her eyes, leaning forward. She's like a wave of silvery clear water, threatening to cascade down a waterfall onto rocks below. Aaron can't take his eyes off her. He shouts up at her, "Just… go for it!" he moves a little, trying to gauge where she'd land.

"Three!" she shouts down, her eyes still closed, "Two!" He sees her knees – one leg dashed in maroon scarlet red – jut out from the wall. "One!"

If there's a moment in the universe that fate has decided is meant to happen in some finite way, it's this. Aaron is meant to watch her jump away from the bricks and dead wood; watch her whole body, paler and brighter than the stars, tumble to the ground. She lands with a jarring thud onto wet grass, rolling around before she stops. His heart leaps back into life and he goes over to her, kneeling in the wet grass as he surveys the damage to her body. "You break anything?" he asks softly, cradling her cheek like she's not real. Like it's a dream.

"Does my watch count?" she asks, holding up her left wrist. The watch face is cracked and the hands are bent and twitching.

Aaron chuckles softly and kisses her lips passionately, stopping when she groans in pain, "What's wrong?"

"If you haven't noticed," she mumbles, pushing him back as she sits up, "I have to stitch myself up." Marta looks around, "Where's Jason?"

"I ran to pick this up." A voice comes from the corner. Jason is pale as well but alive. A little jealous part of Aaron hoped the man had run from the sight of danger. If Bourne's stuck around, it means outside is a worse option than with them. Jason's wielding the backpack, "Medi kit." He kneels on Marta's other side and tears off her jeans.

Aaron immediately growls and grabs Jason's arm, holding it tighter than he should do. "Let me do that."

Marta's lying back down on the grass, rolling her eyes, "For God's sake…" she undoes her own jeans and pulls them down to her knees, grunting in pain as the fabric grazes her war wound. "Everybody happy now?"

Aaron sighs and sits back on the grass, his fingers gently probing her thigh wound. "It's not gone through the femoral." He mutters as Jason looks through their medical kit. "But it's better if we sew it up here and now before you do anymore damage, Doc."

Marta lies back down, seemingly exhausted, "It's the only major thing…" she looks at Jason, "You need the-"

"I know what I need." Jason says, cutting her off, "You just lie back and grab something strong; this is going to hurt, Dr Shearing."

"Call me Marta." She says, inflaming the green eyed monster in Aaron.

There are a lot of monsters buried under his skin but this one is quickly snaking into his head, "Here, hold my hand." Aaron says, grabbing her hand and locking their fingers together so she can't slip away from him. So maybe Aaron's possessive after all. He's not used to sharing; agents just took but Bourne's an agent too.

Jason fills up a syringe and wipes her arm with rubbing alcohol, sinking the needle straight into her arm, "This'll take the edge off in a minute."

"Just sew me up." She mutters, laying her head onto Aaron's knee. His thumb makes idle patterns along her skin as Jason starts to sew up Marta.

Aaron remembers meeting Marta for the first time. For the other twelve times after that too.

_He's late. He's too late for words. The nice doctor will be mad at him for being late, whoever he is. The doctor Ken- Aaron had seen last time has left, he's been told. His dosages need to be adjusted again so they're sending him to a new doctor who can make it stick right in his body this time. The little pills they give him make him smarter and stronger but not enough for his Captains. They want more, more stable too, and keep sending him back like bad food at a restaurant. He pushes open the door, "I know, I'm late. Sorry."_

_Then he looks up and sees her. She's writing on a clipboard, her dark brunette waves of hair pulled back into a soft ponytail, cliché glasses perched on her cute nose. She looks too much like someone he'd dream about when he's training. "Strip down and put the gown on." She's not looking at him. Her voice is clinical, too._

_He looks down and closes the door, immediately pulling off his white tee and the dog tags that doubled as his pill case, clattering them onto a chair. He keeps looking at her. "What?" she asks, "Didn't expect your doctor to be a woman?" she doesn't sound angry. It's like it's happened to her before._

"_No. I didn't expect my doctor to be so beautiful that I'd want her to run away with me." He smirks lasciviously. He's gotten so much more out of himself since he got into Outcome. "It's an offer, by the way."_

"_I'll respectfully decline, thank you."_

_He chuckles softly and pulls on the gown, tying it up with his newly deft fingers. "So, what's a nice girl like you doing in a secret government programme?" he asks, perching himself on the edge of the exam table._

"_Fixing you." She busies herself with a syringe, still refusing to look at him. She's colder than ice._

"_Nice sentiments, Doc."_

_She swabs his arm with something that makes his skin prick up, "Count down from a hundred." She injects him and depresses the syringe._

"_Hundred… ninety-nine… ninety-eight… ninety-seven…" His world goes dark and he suddenly remembers he didn't ask for her name._

_When he wakes up, he feels… different. She's not there and there are new clothes on a chair, his dog tags piled on top, filled up with brand new pills. He forgets about the beautiful doctor as he slips them over his neck._

Aaron swallows as Jason finishes sewing up Marta. Jealousy isn't a helpful emotion, especially now; though a part of him still feels that pain of inadequacy. Aaron bends and presses a kiss to Marta's hand, still anchored in his. "Come on, Doc. You did this to me four times. I'm sure you can do it once."

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A/N: please review and make me feel better? :)

A/N: now my other fic is done, I'm looking for prompts or requestions about Aaron and Marta so send one in if you've got an idea. Thanks!


	16. Chapter 16

Hello! :) thank you all soooo much for the reviews! Every single one is greatly appreciated XD. This chapter is a little bit more on Jason, delving into what's happened to him to make him seek action now and why he went for Aaron and Marta. For anyone who likes Aaron's jealous side, watch out...

Please review if you can :) but honestly, I'm just happy people are sticking with me in the long haul.

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16

When she wakes up – finally – the sun is blaring in and it makes her blink. Marta can't remember blacking out from anything but Jason or Aaron must have given her something so she'd sleep without pain while she tried to heal. Her fingers rub groggily at her heavy eyes, trying to focus on the dark surroundings; any light was coming from the windows and no lamp so she knows she's been asleep for a while. Marta blinks a once, twice, and notices she's buried in warm, soft blankets that wrap around her so delicately it seems a shame to disturb someone's good work. She smiles softly at the thought of Aaron carrying her inside after she'd blacked out and tucking her in like swaddling a new born child. His nature had told her that what Aaron values, he makes sure is kept safe – even if the subject of his value does take stupid and necessary risks sometimes. She's expecting an ass-whipping from him soon.

Marta's kind of a wimp with pain still, at least more so than both men seemed to be and she idly thinks it's probably their combination of masculine pride and government intervention; showing weakness is evidently not on the curriculum at Outcome or Treadstone. She sits up slightly and flexes her toes to test her tendons and muscles, working slowly up to clenching her calves. No pain there. She reluctantly peels back the soft blankets and sees her thigh wound, wrapped in a clean white bandage that wraps around her thin leg and seals around the wound, applied with expert precision. Marta sighs and sees other cuts, bruises, scrapes and grazes littering her forearms and parts of her leg but otherwise – apart from her thigh – she's fine.

She should think herself lucky really. Marta killed armed men while hanging from a rotten trellis on the outside of a three storey decrepit building and somehow only came away with one lasting scar. It doesn't mean much next to two incredibly powerful killing machines who could survive bullets to almost anywhere and be ready to fight again after a night's sleep. She still feels like the damsel in distress who needs saving, who needs protecting and hiding from the big bad world. Marta's never thought of herself as weak and when she thinks back to all she's survived in the last however long it's been – she can't tell for sure – and knows she's not _weak_.

She's survived a colleague who was brainwashed or whatever they did, who tried to aim a gun at her, who killed everyone else she worked with in her beautiful lab. She survived her own crumbling house of pain being invaded by more people who were determined to see her dead. She misses them like a hole in the head. Marta gingerly swings her legs around to the floor, having been laid down onto an airbed mostly deflated by now. She groans a little as she does and leans back against the wall, remembering the shock of Aaron bursting from her pantry like Superman from the phone booth in red and blue regalia. Marta's survived Aaron too. God knows how.

Gritting her teeth, she pushes herself onto her feet, leaning against a cold wall for support. There's no sound of voices, no footsteps but their stuff is still here so she knows they haven't stupidly abandoned her, at least. Marta takes a few steps, wanting to taste fresh air on her tongue again. She manages to get to the front door and uses her whole aching body to haul it open, beaming like a child when she feels sun and breeze on her face.

Marta groans a little as she tries walking down the stone steps, leaning heavily on the railing so much that her grazed knuckles turn white. As she gets down to the final steps and sits on the brick wall at that surrounds the overgrown front yard, she feels relief. Marta closes her eyes and just basks at the warmth on her face for forever. It's a simple pleasure to take in; the smell of wet grass and the sound of life and wind in the trees.

"You know he'll go insane when he finds you out here." Her heaven is interrupted by a gravelly voice.

Marta keeps her eyes closed, "He'll forgive me." She says simply, hearing heavy footsteps walk down from behind her. "Lord knows why."

"You know why," Jason says, sitting next to her on the stone wall as she opens her eyes. "He's insanely in love with you, Doc." Jason looks down at his feet and she can't quite figure him out. The usual then. "It's sweet and stupid."

Marta chuckles, "Sounds like love." She runs her sore fingers through her hair and groans a little as it stings.

He looks up immediately, "Still hurt?"

Marta nods a little and looks at her palms, upturned on her knees. "They'll take a while to heal. Fingertips take the longest because the nerve endings need to reseal." She looks at him, his eyes trained on her palms like he's deep in thought. After a moment, she says, "Jason?"

"Yeah?" he replies absently.

"Why are you doing this? You're… you evaded them for so long, you could do it again but why stay?" She can't help but probe, it's in her nature to constantly examine, ask questions.

"That's a loaded question, huh?" Jason sighs, "You've only been on the run for a few weeks, right? If that. I've been on the run for years, Dr Shearing. It wears thin, I tell you."

"No…" she shakes her tired head, "No, it's more than that. What happened? Why now? Why us?"

Jason looks into her eyes, seemingly to gauge something from her. "I lost one person too many, that's what happened. You and Cross have skill, I'll give you that…" he almost smiles. "But you won't get anywhere when you're still new at this, I learnt that. You want to dash out of the gate, fuelled by revenge and a need for answers or whatever but it doesn't work like that. When you're bringing down something so integrated into national security, something has to take its place and you need as much information as possible for that to happen. Information comes from informed people."

"Hence Aaron and I." she says, realising how deep this cover-up has to go. Marta swallows and looks across at Jason. His broad shoulders look weighed down with regret. "Who was the person you lost?"

His eyes snap up to hers, "Doesn't matter anymore, does it? She's gone."

Then Marta twigs. She. "You lost someone you love." She says softly, turning so she could look at him, "I… I'm so sorry."

He sighs a little, expressionless. Marta thinks he's seen enough monsters. "Nicky. I thought I could keep her safe, dodge the bullets, go underground and bide my time… I've done some stupid things, Doc." He looks at her and it's the first time she's glimpsed reality in him, "Falling in love was the worst mistake. If you're smart enough, you'll realise running and hiding don't work; they'll find you in the end and one of you is going to die and it's not going to be him."

Marta can't hear this. Not now, not ever, "But we can do it. We can make everything work, I have knowledge."

"So did Nicky and they killed her anyway because of me." He stares directly into her eyes and it unnerves her to be so physically close to him. "It's not if, Doc, it's when." His fingers slide on top of hers, clutching them too tight; they don't fit there like Aaron's do. "The smartest thing I ever realised is that men like me, men like him, we can't love anyone."

She looks down at his rough hand on top of her and then looks up again, wide eyed and frightened.

"You should be inside." Aaron's hardened voice says from behind her. He's leaning up against the doorframe lazily but his eyes are stormy, clapping thunder across the normally crystal blue, his jaw set in a line as hard as the frame he's leaning against. Marta immediately snatches her hand from underneath Jason's like it burnt her; she's trapped between a rock and a hard place once more. Maybe she should be scared of a man like Aaron falling in love with her after all.

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A/N: So you think a jealous Aaron's a good thing or will it spell more discord between the trio? :) leave me a review? xx


	17. Chapter 17

I'm so so sorry this is a bit late. I've been trying to catch up to the work I've missed and other crazy life rubbish that doesn't matter but I finally had some free time today to think about Anchored and I finally decided that I wanted to skip some more time because honestly, I love this little chapter. It's kind of my idea of what I'd love to watch on a screen and we get to see what Aaron the agent is like again. Heeee. I hope you all like it because I think I love it :D

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter; hugs and kisses to all!

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17

He can't remember the last time he saw her smile. It must be months now.

The room he's in is dark and dank, rusting pipes line the walls and creak. Aaron's half expecting some horror movie music to turn on as a crazy guy in a creepy clown mask hacks off his hands and feet. He misses her warmth the most. Every part of her is made of warmth and home now, Aaron remembers fondly, his split and bleeding lips turning into a smile. His hands ache and sting from the wire cutting into them but they don't matter now. Just the memory of her smile matters. He's doing this for her anyway. Another punch lands on his jaw with another sickening crack to match the rusted pipes. Aaron's getting used to the taste of blood on his tongue. It's nothing different. They've been apart for a long time and lately he's having trouble remembering her face; that scares him more than anything. The guy who's punching him – sloppily punching; he needs retraining – says something to Aaron in Russian that Aaron barely bothers to listen to. He just can't be bothered with their clichéd murmurings of threats and warnings. Please. He's fought with worse before and will again. She gets him through the pain they inflict and it's more than enough for Aaron to survive punches, kicks, hot wires and electrocution.

Now he remembers. It's been 3 weeks here as a prisoner but it's been 8 long weeks without seeing her. Marta had been reluctant at first but there wasn't another option. Aaron didn't strictly trust Jason Bourne but there wasn't any choice in the matter. Aaron's the only man for this job and he's been forced to trust Jason with Marta's life – and her injuries. God help the man if she came to more harm. Bourne would beg to be turned over to Byer and the US government. Pain tries its way through his spine as they jolt him again with probes but Aaron pushes the devil back down and grunts for effect. Those amateurs still kept it on low voltages, even after 3 weeks. They switch between Russian and English, depending on what mood they're in and he's established the pattern; who's playing the good guy, who's playing the bad guy, and who just wants to inflict pain out of sheer sadism. It's been a productive 3 weeks so far.

"Tell us what you know and the pain, it will stop," the ringleader says, puffing from a cigarette. "We know you have information and we can help you if you give it to us, Agent."

"You know what? I think those things are gonna kill you." Aaron smirks, bloodied and bruised, "Cancer, emphysema, coronary heart disease… these would be things to avoid."

He gets another punch in the gut for that remark. The henchman's swing is counter balanced though and Aaron sees them coming a mile off.

"Yes, these things can kill me over the next what? Thirty years?" the ringleader smiles sickeningly, his dirty blonde hair slicked back. "Whereas I can kill you now. Would you like that? Not many people in this world get told their death date."

"When you put it like that…" Aaron takes a few deep breaths, "How can I refuse? I'm sure I can live my life's dreams and wishes in ten minutes."

"Five." Ringleader chuckles, "Cutbacks, Agent. Cutbacks."

Aaron looks down a little, switching positions of his hands, "I have no information. You know that, right? You're wasting time and energy and valuable henchmen on me."

"American liar." The henchman sneers and spits next to Aaron's feet. "You are nothing."

The ringleader shakes his head, "Oh dear, my friend. We have to have another conversation about liars? You know what we do."

"Maybe I like it." Aaron winks, smirking, "Always had a thing for leather bondage, sweetheart."

That one gets him crashed to the floor, the big Russian thug's foot toppling the chair onto its side with Aaron still tied to it. "You will burn!" the henchman's foot connects with Aaron's stomach hard and Aaron coughs up blood. Shit.

The world is spinning around as he tries to breathe for a second, "Fine." He splutters and the henchman stops kicking. "What do you want to know?

The ringleader laughs softly and Aaron's chair is righted, "Oh good boy, I know it is only matter of time before we get to you." He taps Aaron's swollen cheek with his palm, "Good boy."

Aaron rolls his eyes, "Enough of the clichés, please. That's torture enough." He groans, "What do you want to know?"

"The location of your nuclear defence missiles." Playtime's over. "I work for very powerful men, Agent." He smirks, "I would have control over the most powerful defences of the most powerful country in the world. Would not that be a wondrous achievement?"

"You're asking the wrong guy about achievements." Aaron spits blood onto the ground, pain starting to ring in his ears, "Nuclear defence sites? I'm surprised you guys haven't gotten those yet." Aaron grunts a little as the henchman grabs his throat suddenly.

"Do not doubt Russian ambition, Agent. There is much you can teach us about your country's secret defence systems. I think you are a defence system, yes?"

"You know that already." Aaron grunts out again, his head forced back all the way. "I want something in return for this. You know if I give you this information, they'll brand me a terrorist for it and the bounty on my head will be bigger than the top ten most wanted put together." He looks at the ringleader. "I want money and weapons."

The ringleader smirks, "You drive a tough bargain, my friend. But I think I can do that for you." He chuckles and gives instructions to his henchman in Russian. "Just tell us everything you know."

An hour later and Aaron's given them convincing bullshit about America's nuclear defence systems. He plays his part well, sighing in relief as they snip the wires from his hands. The ringleader stops the tape recorder he used and slips it into his pocket, "You have been most helpful, Agent. It is a pleasure doing the business with you."

"No skin off my nose now." He flexes his arms as the henchman dumps two carriers on the floor, one full of cash, the other with brand new assault rifles and ammo. "I mean, it's been 3 weeks to the day, yeah? Plenty of time."

The ringleader's smile falters a little. "Time for what?"

Aaron picks up the two bags, swinging them over his shoulder as if they were made of air, "For my friends to hack into your employer's systems and download viruses to every piece of software you own so that the files are corrupted and irretrievable. It's simple really." He smirks as a sniper's bullet flies through the henchman's head, splattering brains all over Aaron. Another bullet cuts through the ringleader's knee and he screams, "Oh you've got a bit of red on you, Dmitri," Aaron chuckles as he stomps on the man's stump of a leg, "Oh dear, I think I've just made it worse. Sorry."

The ringleader looks up at him, "They will not stop looking for you. They are the best." He seethes through his teeth, his whole body shaking in pain and anger. Aaron loves it.

"I am the best." Aaron walks towards the door, "Don't worry, Dmitri. It'll all be over soon."

The ringleader scurries along the floor, desperately trying to reach the dead henchman's weapon but Aaron picks the gun from the bag and loads it in a second, firing a shot into Dmitri's head. "Told you." Aaron puts the gun back into the bag and kicks open the door.

The sun's blaringly bright. Aaron looks up, "Where's Marta?" he calls.

"She's got the car. Come on." Jason leaps down from the open window, rifle in hand, "We've got one minute nine seconds until their back up shows up."

Aaron laughs, "Enjoyed the show, I bet." He can hear a car in the distance and he can't believe how excited he is to see Marta again after so long. "Did you get the job done?"

Jason pulls a flash drive from his jacket pocket, smirking a little, "We now have our bargaining chip, Cross. Good work."

"Good? Good? I had to spend three weeks getting weakly punched by a Russian mobster and all I get is 'good'? I was brilliant."

"I caught the act. A little hammy, but it worked." Jason walks along the side of the building and Aaron spots the car.

"Marta." He runs, dumping the two bags on the floor as Marta leaps out. She looks so much better than when he last saw her.

"Aaron." She leaps out of the car and runs into his arms, "You look like hell, honey."

Aaron kisses her deeply, sinking into ruby lips and glossy hair, her smell fresh and vibrant like Technicolor after black and white. "Thanks. You look like heaven."

"What are those?" she asks, pointing to the duffel bags on the floor, "That wasn't in the plan."

"Call it a bonus. I thought I'd try my hand." He chuckles. "There's about half a million dollars in one and some toys for Bourne to play with."

Jason just grunts as he picks up the bags and zips them up, putting them into the back of the SUV. "Come on, love birds. We've got 38 seconds to get out or we'll be in a beige version of hell."

Aaron pecks Marta's lips and runs around to the car, jumping in as Jason takes the wheel. They speed off to their next checklist point. Aaron's spent 8 weeks without the woman he loves, swindling Russian wannabes out of ammunition, money, intelligence and a bargaining chip. Aaron thinks, as he sinks back into Marta's lips on the back seat of the car, that it's probably been both the easiest and hardest mission of his life.

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A/N: I know I didn't explain why they had to be parted for so long but that's coming in the next chapter, which will be up sometime Friday night (my day off; yay!). Also I'm working on a new AU for Aaron and Marta so be on the look out :D

A/N2: Please leave me a review :) *puppy dog eyes*


	18. Chapter 18

Hello :) thanks for all the support for the last chapter. I decided that I wasn't in the mood for angst today so I decided to take a little sojourn into Marta/Aaron smuttiness and just wrote this short chapter as relief before we get into action-y stuff. I hope you like it!

Please review for more!

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18

The moonlight blares in like it did not long ago, only this time they're not on a rickety fishing boat or holed up in a stone building, freezing their asses off. Marta is on a comfortable bed somewhere near the Russian countryside, naked but wrapped in blankets and sheets salvaged from market places and washing lines along the way. Aaron is wrapped around her from behind, his arms securing her to his front like a vice making sure she doesn't wander off. He's refusing to let her go, even when he's deep in sleep and still healing from his three-week's worth of bruises and malnutrition at the hands of somewhat bunglingly sadistic Russian intelligencers. Marta had almost refused to be apart from Aaron when Bourne and Cross had brought up the idea of infiltrating from both ways in order to get the bargaining chip they needed to take Byer's regime apart by the seams. Aaron had used sneaky logic on her that she couldn't refute; he knows her too well, that's obvious. Other – lesser – men would use emotional blackmail and trickery, but Marta's not the woman to defer to her emotions in times of crisis. No. Aaron had made his argument logically faultless and, though it killed her, she couldn't find a rational argument. After eight weeks apart, eight long weeks with the stoicism of Bourne, seeing Aaron had brought breath back into her lungs. Now he's still anchored to her and she's happy he can't let her go. She does love him, she does trust him.

A yawn breaks her lips and she watches the white stars out the window, happier than she's been since he kissed her goodbye and hello again. This ramshackle little Bed and Breakfast place is so remote, she'd wondered if they were the first ever customers for the elderly couple renting out the rooms. Thanks to Aaron's bonus, they could afford a warm bed or two finally; it'd been too many weeks of camping in tents and abandoned buildings with Jason for her count. Miserable nights spent cold, alone, trying to get more than business talk out of Jason Bourne were wasted ones, in her opinion. She spent most of her time training up, being more domestic than she's comfortable being. Washing clothes and cooking weren't exactly her idea of being useful in life or death situations; especially when Aaron was getting the shit kicked out of him daily. No matter how much Bourne vainly tried to reassure her that Aaron could take far worse for far longer, she couldn't stop her mind wandering to the bad things he had to endure to keep her safe. She should never have doubted the part of him that longed to keep her for his own. So what if he's possessive and jealous? Marta has to admit, even reluctantly, that it turns her on when he calls her _his_.

"What are you pondering now, Marta Shearing?" he mutters against her neck, his hot breath pouring over her skin like sunshine.

She turns her head to look at him a little, her body immovable, "I was just enjoying the scenery."

It seems he can't stop getting more of her and she feels his rough, healing lips graze her shoulder, "I thought you'd be sick of the stars by now." His thumb brushes her stomach lightly and she just melts so far into him that it's really an equal game anymore.

"Who would get sick of stars?" Marta turns back to the window and he takes the advantage, kissing the part of her neck that had a direct line to her sex drive. "Now that's just evil."

He chuckles and smirks against her neck, now buried in her, "You know I'm bad. You're the one who likes it. We've got a lot of catching up to do."

"We did it already." She closes her eyes. It's as if he's got a direct line to her body. Marta moans as he kisses her neck and grinds his crotch into her ass. "God, you're just an asshole."

"Yes." His hand snakes down her stomach slowly, eliciting fire where it went. "I need to take what's mine." He slides two fingers into her, slowly. She moans and cries out a little as they still, "Don't I, Marta?"

"Yes…" She moans, leaning back into him. Aaron knows exactly what to do to turn her into a body keening for more. "More."

Aaron twists his fingers inside her and she cries out, her back arching as a sudden spike of pleasure stabs down her spine. "God, Marta. You know how much I thought about you while I was gone?" The heel of his hand presses down onto her clit, "Every fucking minute of every fucking day. You infected me, didn't you? You made me fall in love with you. "

Marta pants a little as he keeps bringing her to the brink and pulling it back, "You think… I had it easier?" she grinds her ass back against his hard cock, murmuring, "You think I didn't spend every minute thinking about you? You're crazy."

Aaron chuckles and pinches her nipple between roughened fingertips. He can play her body like a master now and she's the student still. "Marta, I was darker without you, you know." His fingers slide out of her and grasp her thigh to hook her leg back over his hip. "I was back to being an agent and that was it. Cold, dark, relishing pain to get my mind off you, you know… the usual."

"That it?" she smirks a little. Aaron slides his cock into her in a single thrust, making her keen in pleasure spiking through her, "Oh god, what the hell have you done to me?"

"Fuck…" he mutters against her neck, one calloused palm holding her leg up, the other kneading her breast tenderly. "Never going to get used to this, baby."

"Don't call me baby." She growls and thrusts back onto him, unwilling to bend so easy, "You chose to leave me, Aaron. You won't do it again." Marta cries out in pleasure as he thrusts deeper and faster into her body.

"Not going to leave you again. It was torture." He's pounding into her now, clamping a hand around her mouth so she can't make a noise. God, he's so hard and right inside her, she needs more, faster, deeper, harder. "I love you too much."

Marta reaches up and pulls the hand from her mouth, panting and crying out, "Fuck, I love you too. Don't stop."

She can't remember what makes her blackout into oblivion but she's sure it's the feeling of coming around his hard cock, calling out his name as she comes more than he's ever made her before. Marta pants and collapses back against him, licking her dry lips. She can feel him shaking behind her, whole shuddering breaths wracking his body. It makes her proud to think that someone as ordinary as her can reduce an assassin to a quivering wreck. She has power in her fingertips too.

"Marta." He whispers, kissing her shoulder as he lets her leg down again. "I promise you this time, I am not leaving you. You're mine now, and I always want you to be."

She just nods, her eyes are heavy again. The last thing Marta sees before exhaustion claims her again is the stars in the sky.


	19. Chapter 19

I'm so so so so sorry I haven't updated this in a week. I know, I'm lacking lately but work's getting to me. I wish I had a week off to just find the time to write this properly. But thanks for sticking with me, I hope I can get some more writing done this weekend before I have to go back to the daily grind.

I promised you some gritty action right? :) Thanks for all the reviews for the last chapter, one very flattering one in particular. You know who you are and this is for you :) you cheered me up so much!

Please read and review, I hope you like it as we're coming to the end.

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19

That's when it all goes to hell. He's prepared for hell, usually.

Aaron, Marta and Jason have been holing inside an abandoned hotel closer to Moscow for a week; patiently waiting for Aaron's injuries to heal and for Marta's fighting skills to improve. She's gotten better, and he praises whoever will listen in thanks for her ability to pick things up quickly. Aaron can see the frustration in her eyes when she gets a move wrong though; he can read her like a book and Jason's cottoning on to her methodology quickly. They exchange glances when her brown eyes glaze over into stone at target practice – he can't let her become used to killing, a step closer to him that he won't let her take. Jason's a man even Aaron can't figure out completely; being alone and losing pretty much everything and everyone probably led him to not get too attached to people around him. Aaron can't blame him for that. Aaron's stuck between a woman he knows better and trusts than anyone but has to protect her, and Bourne who he won't let Aaron anywhere near to trusting him, a man who would still fight to the death for his own freedom. A part of Aaron Cross wonders when Bourne will chose his own freedom over Aaron and Marta's. He always saves the last bullet, even in training.

The hollowed old dining room is their training ground these days. One keeps watch while the other two train, though Marta never keeps watch for more than an hour. Aaron wipes the sweat from his brow as he and Bourne spar. Left cut, uppercut, right side swipe, ankles crack.

"When's the last time you threw a decent punch?" Aaron taunts him, grinning and ducking another lazy swing from Bourne's side. Marta's above them, keeping watch at the window.

"Old guy like you can't take a punch from me." Bourne counters, his own brow dripping sweat too. "I mean, you're like 50, right?"

"41, dick..." Aaron swings and wraps an arm around Jason's throat but he's easily flipped over and thudded to the ground on his back. "Ow, fucker..." he groans, his vision dazed, "What'd you do that for?"

"Because when I went easy on you, you complained." Jason chuckles, "Come on, don't give up."

"Yeah, yeah. How old are you, anyway?" Aaron regains momentum and jumps back up swiftly, cracking his jaw back into place. "Older than you look, I bet."

"Not 41." Jason smirks and punches Aaron's jaw.

Aaron groans and swings back, landing one on his stomach, "Is that older or younger?" he asks, pushing Jason up against the old wood clad wall.

Jason kicks out at Aaron's knees and knocks him off-kilter, sending him flying backwards, stumbling like a toddler, "I'm not getting pally, Cross."

"It's called distraction," Aaron swings for a punch but diverts, catching Jason off guard as he pulls an arm behind his back, wrenching it up, "See how that works?"

Jason groans but manages to twist Aaron's wrist painfully, punching him again once he was turned back around. "You're not the only one who went through it." Jason pulls his arm back to punch Aaron but stops as there's a jarring thud from the upstairs balcony.

"Marta." Aaron whispers, scrabbling up. It's a practised routine. One noise out of place and they're off like their own gunshot. Jason grabs two guns, tossing one to Aaron who catches it effortlessly. They don't bother to be quiet going up the stairs; creaking wooden things are ubiquitous in desolate buildings. His senses are alight again, heart thundering in his chest. Aaron snakes along a back wall, inching closer to the half open door. Jason's on the other side, signalling manoeuvres. Aaron nods in understanding, taking the safety off his gun. He tries not to panic as he hears Marta cry out in pain. Jason signals. Three. Two. One.

Aaron kicks the door wide open, surveying the damage.

She's just standing in the middle of the room, panting. Her heavy booted foot is crushing the intruder's windpipe. Aaron lowers his gun, sensing no other movement. "Marta?"

She looks up at him, "Asshole snuck up on me." She has a gun trained on the man's head, "Scaled the wall outside and walked up the ledge." Marta shakes her head.

Jason squats down next to the guy, unzipping the black jacket he's wearing. Underneath is a police grade uniform. "He's a cop?"

"No." Aaron shakes his head, squatting down too, "Police around here, they don't go to work with their shirts untucked, wrong knot in the tie," he digs into the man's pocket. "No badge, no ID."

Jason puts a gun to the man's temple, visibly angry, "So, who is he?"

Aaron lifts Marta's boot off the guy, straddling his chest. He speaks to the guy in Russian, grabbing his throat in his roughened hand, squeezing a little, _"Who are you?"_

"_Like I would tell American scum like you."_

Jason looks at Aaron, pressing the gun so deep into the man's temple, his head is twisted, "Who are you?" Jason asks in English.

"Shoot me." The man manages to spit out, "There is a price on your heads, more will come."

"Byer." Marta sighs, "He went global with it. We're not safe anywhere."

Aaron nods, switching back to Russian, "_How big is the price?_

Jason's head snaps up, "What are you doing, Cross? This isn't the plan!"

"What isn't?" Marta asks, looking between them. "What did he say?"

"_Five million American dollars. Each." _The man says in Russian, frowning in confusing, "_Why?"_

"_You're going to be a rich man." _Aaron spits out, "_You can bring us in. Take us to America."_

"You're fucking crazy." Jason shakes his head, gun still trained on the man's head, "There's no way we're doing this, it's not just suicide, it's… clownish!"

"Clownish?"

"Yes!" Jason stands up, "You spout all this crap about wanting to protect her and now you're sending us all into the den? There's no way she's ready."

"Yes she is, you've seen what she can do. We are literally on the outskirts of nowhere, we've been everywhere and they found us out. It's got to be now because we are running out of time."

Marta's gun goes off and they both stop arguing, looking at her. "Stop talking about me like I'm not here." She aims her gun back down from the ceiling, a pile of rubble and dust beneath the bullet hole in the ceiling, "I don't appreciate being talked about like a child who's done something wrong. Now you're both going to tell me what's going on and you're going to do it now before I shoot both of yours balls off."

Aaron swallows, still straddling the intruder. She's scary when she's mad. It's probably a good thing for other people. "We have a new plan. It's… risky but I know you can handle it. We let this man hand us over to Byer and we infiltrate separately. They'll divide us to conquer us and you have to be prepared for that, fighting alone."

Marta swallows, nodding softly, "Alone. Right…" she looks down and across at Jason, "Same idea, different execution." He says softly.

"Execution could be the right word." She mutters softly.

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A/N: You reckon Marta's ready for something this big? I'd be bricking it, personally... :) I told you we were getting into the grittier stuff, and it's only going to get tougher.


	20. Chapter 20

Hello :) hope you didn't forget about me; I certainly didn't forget about you. I'm crawling out from illness/family/Christmas stuff/essay writing to post this chapter. We are getting very close to the end now so I'm going to take my time and do it right :)

Thank you to everyone who keeps reviewing, they're like candy treats post-Halloween. Please read and review: I hope you like it

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20

If Marta's completely honest with herself, she has no idea how this is going to work. Ever. She thinks it's a ridiculous thing, to willingly hand themselves in to the people who want to hang, draw and quarter them. It's testing her faith to be alone. It's how they've taken them; blindfolded, handcuffed, separated like animals being shipped zoo to zoo. Marta doesn't know, just doesn't know a thing... It's dark and cold and she can't feel the presence of anyone around her. It's terrifying: the realisation suddenly dawning on her how much Aaron makes her feel safe, just being there next to her. Even if it's just standing side by side, Marta feels safe and now it's been ripped away from her like stitches being removed from an unhealed wound. They trained her as much as she's capable of being trained but how much can she be like them or anywhere near? Jason's made of loss and war, Aaron's made of hope and desperation; she's made of… something. Intelligence, fear, faith, listlessness, aimlessness? Marta takes deep breaths to steady her nerves; surely the two trained killers didn't have to think happy thoughts in order to not have a freak out. She can hear muffled voices of stark raving men laughing and hears her name a couple times and those of her boys ring clearer in her ears. She's getting fuelled up on doing this for their sacrifices, their dedications to her and getting everything unfucked-up (always the technical term for Marta).

Marta wriggles in her seat, strapped down as a maniac in an asylum. The car or van or whatever she's in is speeding quickly along a smooth road, as much as she can tell. It feels like it's been hours since she was hauled off that plane, flanked by two armed guards the whole way there. She'd not seen or heard about Jason and Aaron since American forces took them in Russia. She leans her head back, desperately trying to pull her blindfold up and away from her eyes like Aaron had taught her one eventful evening in their makeshift bed. Marta manages to get the blindfold off one eye and wills her vision to refocus as light blares in, blinking away the glare. She can make out trees banking the sides of the road, white buildings in the distance like beacons. She recognises the terrain, she thinks. Marta's spent a few years of her life driving down these roads, going from her lab to the big house to report back. Yes. She knows where they're being taken better than Aaron and Jason would do; she smiles and licks her drying lips. It'll all be alright, at the end.

When she gets manhandled – a bit too physically for her liking – out of the car and is made to walk blindfolded for what seems like even longer than the plane ride, Marta retracts all of her previous admiration for the US government: they were sloppy in comparison to those they trained. She gets sat down and re-handcuffed to a chair, the metals clinking and scratching against each other. Finally. Breathing is better, softer, calmer. She's rehearsed this over and over in her head. "Name?" a gruff voice says as the blindfold is finally removed.

"Marta Jane Shearing, as if you didn't know." She smiles sweetly, her eyes readjusting again. The room's bright and gleaming, the walls begging to be stained with the blood she knows has been spilt in here many times before.

"Do you know why you've been brought here?" the man asks. Marta doesn't recognise him personally but he has the regimental sneer of knowing superiority is practically uniform around them. He's got the grey suit, grey tie, white shirt, slicked back greying hair. The man's like a black and white photograph in front of her. Is one of their tactics to devoid her of colour?

"I assume it's because either I have something you want and then you'll kill me or you have something I want and want a deal in exchange." She chuckles, "And then you'll kill me. Either way these things don't end very well, do they?"

He looks down for a second then back up to her. So he isn't the one running the show, just another player puppet, listening to the voice in his ear. "Everybody dies." He pulls out some newspapers, laying them in front of her on the table, "What counts, Dr Shearing, is what you do for your country, for your family, before you die. Do something good."

Marta stares at the newspapers. Each one has headlines with her name and picture, proclaiming her a terrorist and an enemy of the state, "I figured you'd spew these lies about all of us. You think I give a damn?"

"Yes." He nods, "You do because you're human. All of us give a damn about what other people think. Right now… how you'll be remembered, doctor, is as a traitor who sold out everything she had going for her." Marta notices a newspaper with her mother's face splashed on it. Now that's over the line. "They're living in shame of you. Sadly, we can't do a thing to protect them from the glares of the local community. Such a shame, it honestly is."

"They aren't ashamed of me." She mutters a little, eyes trained on the grainy photo of her mother. "I know they won't believe a thing your shit spewers write about me. You won't get to me through my family." Marta's gaze snaps back up to the grey man, "Or did you think this was honestly going to work?" She smiles as he grits his teeth. She needs to work him down.

"Can I just ask you a question, former government lackey to current government lackey?" she bends forward, the handcuffs clanking behind her, "Is there any part of you that feels guilty for what you do to men like Bourne and Cross? You take them from their lives, desensitise them to death by calling it 'training'." She stares into his ice cold eyes, the same stone grey as the rest of him. "You force them to be alone, force them to shoot at innocent men, women and children just because they were there, in the way." Marta shakes her head, "You keep them leashed to a feeding tube, giving them just too little of what they need so they keep coming back for more. That's why you didn't want us to viral all of them off on greens and blues, that's why Jason's memory is impaired, that's why you stationed Peter in Alaska. You wanted them to keep coming back to you for answers, for meds. Only… you forgot something: they're still human." She smiles softer, sweeter. "They fell in love, felt the guilt and hardness inside themselves get better with time, gained back an independence you tried to stamp out of them…" she leans back, "They even got better without you."

"I don't feel guilty." He shakes his head, looking at Marta with contempt. "None of us do because we did what was necessary to protect this country and its people."

Marta actually laughs, a deep throated laugh that spills over the tension, "Protect the people? That's what they told you? I got news for you: they lied. Treadstone, Blackbriar, Outcome, LARX… none of them have any-fucking-thing to do with protection and everything to do with getting land, commodities, money, oil; whatever they can get their greedy hands on and sell to the right people. I've seen it, I've heard stories and connected the dots, I know everything they did to Jason Bourne, Aaron Cross, Peter Jelinkski…" she leans in and keeps eye contact. Everything inside Marta is shaking with rage, fear, anticipation, "And I'm going to blow it all to the public if it kills me, which it probably will."

Marta leans back and takes a breath. It's been building up inside her for so long; all she's seen and heard from the three agents she'd known, what went on in her lab and what they made her into as well. She has blood on her hands as much as any of them but finally, she can feel a little bit cleaner. "That's all you need to know."

The man in grey looks at her, blinking then stands from his seat. She can't read what he's going to do to her, whether she's going to be executed like the terrorist they claim her to be or just thrown in prison for the rest of her miserable life. He buttons up his jacket, taking the handcuff keys from his suit pocket. "Dr Shearing…" he sighs, "I know they aren't truthful, maybe with good reason." He puts the key on the table. "My name is John Jelinski."

Marta looks up in shock at this man. "Jelinski?"

John nods, "My… my son was a soldier in the US army. They told me he died in an IUD accident nine years ago. I never thought…" he puts a hand on the table. "They kept me here to keep a close eye on me, didn't they? Make sure I didn't know anything. I kept Number Six in line and after he died, they put me here, underground. Peter…" his flat palm makes a fist. "I work for the people who killed my son."

Marta can't believe it. It's got to be a tactic, a lie, a ploy to throw her off-guard. "He never said anything about his family."

John suddenly grabs the handcuff key and swiftly unlocks her handcuffs, pulling them out, "I owe it to my son. I can help you, if you'll let me."

She stands up, rubbing her wrists a little, "Tell me where in the building Cross and Bourne are being held." Marta needs to take the risk, "I need to find them."

He shakes his head, "They're not here." John frowns, taking off his ear piece and stamping on it. "Cross and Bourne were taken somewhere different."

She starts to panic; without Aaron and Jason, everything could be over before it starts. "Where are they?"

"A military facility near New Haven, but where I couldn't tell you." He pulls his pass over his head, "There's no cameras in this room…"

"I know. Can't have video evidence of assassinations that could be leaked to the public." She takes the card, pulling it around her neck. They can't have known about her and Peter if they put Peter's father in a room with her… she hopes. Marta looks at him, "If this is fake, you better pray they kill me."

He tosses her his set of keys, "What are you going to do?"

She looks at the keys, setting her jaw, "I've got some research to collect." Marta nods, "Sorry about this but it has to look good," She pulls back and punches him as hard as she could, sending him flying to the floor. Marta pants and shakes the pain out of her fist, "Motherfucker…" she seethes as her knuckles throb, "How the hell does Aaron do this every day?" She swipes the card against the door and runs for the sake of everyone's lives.

* * *

AN: Do you think John Jelinski is the real deal or is he setting Marta up for a possible fall? eeep, even I'm not sure!


	21. Chapter 21

Hello :) here's the next chapter. We'll get back to Marta in 22, promise. Questions will be answered! Thank you for all the reviews on the last chapter :) I hope you like this installment too. I'm going to miss writing Marta and Aaron when it's over.

Please read and review.

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21

"You didn't think this was going to be that easy, did you?" Aaron spits out another mouthful of blood onto the floor, "I've survived more than your worst nightmares." He breathes heavily and picks up the dusty gun from the floor. Alarms are blaring out everywhere and he's caught in the middle of them like a fly in a web. "I can't stop it now."

"Too late." Byer nods, barely standing, eyes fiery with anger. He stares at Aaron, the warehouse dark except for a single flickering light, "You can't do anything to change what you did, you can't bring back those people you killed. What's done is done."

"On your orders!" Aaron seethes, waving the gun a little, "It was your orchestration, your whim, your will." He's yelling so hard his throat is sore; he can't hear, he can't see – going in deaf, dumb and blind. "So you tell me what to do, Eric. What do I do now?"

"You've got a bullet left. Make it easy on yourself." He smirks a little, "That's what you really have isn't it, Agent Cross? Suicidal tendencies…" Byer chuckles, "Even before we inducted you, before you joined up, it's what you always wanted. Peace from the world because you didn't fit in and _never_ will."

Aaron shakes his head, "Psych evaluations aren't going to get me to aim this anywhere but your head." He pulls off the safety. "Tell me where she is or I will kill you."

Byer flips out a flash drive between his fingers like a cigarette, looking at it. He looks back up at Aaron, "What did you find in Russia anyway? I assume this is some kind of proof."

"Throw it to me." Aaron starts to shake with impatience; he's running out of time to get it to Jason and find Marta. "Or I'll-"

"You'll what?" Byer laughs again, "If you kill me, you'll never find her or Bourne. You'll be alone… again." He slides the flash drive back into his breast pocket, "Just give it up, Cross. You'll never win against the entire organisation. They won't believe you, even with proof. In this country, a potential terrorist is a terrorist. You'll be branded for life, however long you end up living for. She'll die someday, knowing that you made her into a murderer who'll never clear her name." He stands up straighter, buttoning his jacket nonchalantly. "You may as well put that to your head, not mine, for all the good it's doing you."

Aaron stares at him, "How do you sleep at night?" He doesn't let the gun waiver, even for a second. "How do you kiss your children, look at your wife without feeling any guilt?"

"We do what is necessary." Byer spits through his gritted teeth, "I don't give a damn how we protect what's ours; we do it by any means. Collateral damage is unavoidable. How many agents have you killed to get here? Did you stop to think about their parents, their wives, partners, children?"

Aaron swallows, smiling sadly, "Collateral damage is unavoidable." He grits his teeth. "Doesn't mean I have to like it." He fires directly into Byer's shoulder, relishing the man's cries of pain as he collapses to the dirty ground. Aaron stalks over to Byer on the ground, tossing the empty gun away. He kneels over Byer's stomach, plunging two fingers into the bleeding wound and smirking as he screams. "You like being collateral damage, Eric?"

"You wasted your shot." He spits out from beneath Aaron, going rapidly paler as he gets angrier. "You should've killed me."

"Too quick." He twists his fingers and Byer screams again, "Tell me where they are, Byer. I can do so much worse to you, you will beg me to put a bullet in your head."

Byer grits his teeth, unable to move from Aaron's secure hold on his torso, "Fuck you. I'll go kicking and screaming before I give in to a terrorist." He smirks.

Aaron digs his fingers in and touches the nerve and Byer's screams nearly shatter the battered windows. "You brought me here alone, you made it just me and you and you wanted to torture me. How does it fucking feel, Eric? How does it feel to be the one on the sharp end of the knife with no hope?"

"At least I'm not you." He mutters and passes out cold on the floor.

Aaron pulls his fingers out of the wound, incensed. Nothing was going to stop him from finding out where they'd taken Marta. He couldn't go into the belly of the beast without proof she was being held there, even if it did eat him up to think about what they were doing to her. Aaron quickly pulls the flash drive from Byer's pocket and slides it back into his own, feeling around for a wire or a cell phone.

Suddenly, Byer flips them over, pinning Aaron to the ground, "Fuck you." He smirks, punching Aaron as hard as he can, Aaron's nose breaking on impact, blood spurting everywhere as pain spreads over him like hot tar. Byer hits him again and again as Aaron tries to find purchase on the ground enough to get an upper hand, his boots slipping on the concrete floor as Byer breaks one of Aaron's ribs, making him grunt in agony.

The alarms stop suddenly. The light keeps flickering in the dark silence for a split second before the click of another gun's safety getting turned off punches through the deadly haze. Aaron blinks past blood spatters and broken bones and sees a saviour standing tall.

"Jason." He mutters with a smile.

Bourne is ragged and looks battle-worn but holds the gun steady to Byer's head, barely half an inch from the barrel resting on his scalp. "Eric Byer; heard a lot about you lately."

Byer stiffens and stares down at the workmanship he's done to Aaron's face. "Jason Bourne, haven't heard enough about you to last a lifetime."

"Stand up. Slowly." Jason commands, his jaw set tight. "You made one hell of a fuck-up of this, you know that."

Byer follows Jason's command, turning around with his hands up in surrender. "Nobody's perfect, right? I'm just a guy, trying to do right by my country. You can't fault me for that. You both did it too, willingly." He says calmly, his hands bloodied and bruised as he waves them like white flags. "You can try and rationalise what we all did but it's the same in the end. We killed people, dangerous and innocent. We dragged people we loved into warzones and used them to our advantages or just as warm bodies to hold so we'd stop the faces of the dead running through our memories." He shake his head, eyes cold and empty, "You can't stop it; all of them are burned into our consciences and rightly so. If you believe in it, I'll burn in hell." He smirks slowly, "And all of you are going to be right there beside me, burning too."

Jason wavers for a second, a split second enough for Byer to take the advantage and charge him, knocking the gun out of his hand and to the ground far behind them in the dark. Aaron scrambles up to his feet, the piercing agony of pain threatening to render him unconscious if not for his goal; prove Byer wrong and save a life instead of end one.

Bourne punches Byer and twists his arm behind his back, taking advantage of his weakness and slamming him against the wall. Aaron reaches the gun and picks it up, yelling, "Jason!" to him as he throws it with whatever he had left inside him. Jason catches it and fires just after Byer kicks Jason's knee; the shot blasts into the roof, making plaster fall like snow on top of them. Byer grabs the gun and kicks Jason in the stomach, sending him reeling backwards into Aaron.

The weight of Jason against him makes Aaron stumble backwards as Byer pulls the trigger on the gun. For a second, he's not sure whose blood is what he can see.

Jason pales and looks at his chest as he falls backwards, the blood flowing like a waterfall, bathing him in scarlet. Aaron shudders and pulls him back, placing his palms over the wound just above Bourne's heart. There's so much blood, pooling between his fingers and flowing back out. Jason's eyes are wide and accepting. He reaches up with cold hands to grip Aaron's wrist tightly.

"No, no, fuck you, you've come too far." Aaron mutters and puts pressure on Jason's chest, knowing deep inside him that it's pointless. He knows which shots kill and Jason's pretty much dead already, "No, come on, stay awake!"

Blood gurgles up in Jason's mouth and he lays back flat against the floor as he gives up the ghost, grip slackened around Aaron's shaking wrist. His eyes dull, chest stilled; dead. No words, no song, no hero's last stand. He's just dead on the floor beneath Aaron's bright, bloodied hands.

Aaron stands up slowly, the blood dripping from his fingers onto the floor, splattering on his boots. Byer has Jason's gun trained on Aaron, cold and dead in the eyes.

Aaron looks up, a broken man made of rage, "If you've got a bullet left in that gun, I suggest you use it now or I will not stop until everything you know is destroyed."

Byer pulls the trigger without hesitating.

* * *

A/N: Please don't hate me; I had to do it. I just felt like Aaron needed the push and Jason's death was sadly all I could think of to push him off the edge. And yes, Jason's dead. No tricks, no doctors or miracles. Poor Jason, I've treated him so badly. I'm horrible.


	22. Chapter 22

Firstly, sorry. Secondly, I'm reaaally sorry. Third, I'm so so so sorry this has taken 4 weeks to get written and published but my muse waned for a long time and then something fantastic happened.

I bought The Bourne Legacy on Blu-ray special steel book edition and let me say: I freaking love Marta/Aaron again. Urgh they are just so well positioned toward each other and it's not even explicit in the movie, it's just there with a little sparkle that says everything can work and be fantastic. Can I just say hoo-bloody-ray for Renner and Weisz? They make a fantastic team and I love them (especially shirtless Renner scenes. I'm only human and I hear he's a wonderful person too)

I don't expect anyone to review this chapter as I'm shaky on the characterisation again but I know where I'm going so hopefully this won't be too much of a diversion from believable Marta. I hope.

If you like please review and keep my muse alive :)

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22

More than anything, Marta wants some peace. To look into her eyes, she's exhausted, drained, probably starved and desperate but there's a fire inside her stomach that won't abate. She's heard those stories of women lifting cars to rescue children and she still thinks they're mostly bullshit but maybe there's a flicker of strength and skill inside her enough to do it. She should have known better, honestly. Aaron and Jason drilled it into her that coincidences in the CIA, FBI, Secret Service… don't happen. Ever. Nothing is ever left to chance so coincidences don't exist in their dictionary; they're blotted out from memory. It's all too good to be true that she was handed a ticket to freedom. It turns out to be a loaded gun.

Marta shuts the door quietly behind her, taking a deep steadying breath before racing through catacombs that remind her of Manila in some ways. She clutches that card into her hand so tightly that the razor edges dig into her skin, her heart beating hard enough to scratch it along her palm. Marta can't have been away from here for as long as she thinks but finding the way back to her lab is harder than she'd expected it to be. The place is bright white and tinged with such pale lights that she could scarcely believe that it was the same place she remembered. Maybe it's not, maybe she's wrong but there's a smell of cleaner fluid and plastic on the air that's unmistakable. Last time she walked these halls, they seemed smaller, warmer, more like home than home did. She was always the consummate professional who kept her research clean; nothing interfered with anyone else and she kept herself to herself unless they called for it but she still belonged here; in her lab coat, wrapped around her like armour. She heads down a hall she's walked a hundred times before and it feels like her green mile, though her path is black tiled and cleaner than she's seen in a while. It vaguely sweeps her mind that it feels like she's back at school, older and doesn't belong anymore. Marta swallows as she swipes the card across the first of the locked double doors, relieved when it beeps green and the steady footsteps behind her veer off towards a door she'd passed. Marta pushes open the door before it locks and smiles as she slips through. It locks shut behind her and that's when her ears prick up.

She hears a click on her senses that shouldn't be and Aaron's voice in her head tells her. Duck. A shot rings out and hits the door behind her where her head was. Marta sees the black beetle glint of a barrel poking through a door frame.

"Hands up!" She sticks her hands up over her head, thinking as the blood pounds in her ears. What would he do? How would he get out of this? "Stand up!"

They always bark orders at her, it seems. A smile graces the corner of her lips. They're scared of what she knows and how she can use it. "Sorry. I got lost."

A man in a suit, someone she doesn't know or want to know, steps out, walkie in hand and speaking. "She's here. Just like you said, heading for the lab."

She recognises the voice on the other end. "Good. I got one down. Jason Bourne is dead."

Her eyes widen imperceptibly. Marta won't believe it. Can't be gone. "Byer." She whispers to herself, Aaron's voice thundering in her ear. One fat guy in a suit and three target assassins behind him, guns trained on the centre of her forehead. She's got one shot, maybe. Marta has to try it. Do it, Doc.

Her eyes flicker to the end of the hall and she smiles. "Aaron!"

All of them turn to look and she takes her chance, swiping her card and unlocking the door again, slamming it shut just before hails of bullets try to rip her body to shreds. Marta barricades the heavy metal just in case and pulls off the casing to the card swiper, ripping out the wires and smashing the circuitry with her fist. Jason's dead. Jason's not dead. _Foite with the gun to everyone's head. Got to survive._ She grunts as the last of the circuits breaks and the door jams. Auto lock for chemical accidents had an advantage. She looks at the struggling men behind the window for a second of triumph before she runs into another hallway, her hand bleeding and probably broken.

A turn of her head and alarms blare out around her. They've called it in and now they're hunting her before she gets to her lab. It's a gamble, but everything is these days.

_Are we lost?_

_No. I was just looking at our options._

_Oh. I was kind of hoping we were lost._

She's lost. Another card shakily swiped through another door, leaving smears of blood where she goes but they've hunted off her only direct route to the labs and she's got a choice to make. Can't rely on a hero to save her, not in this place and not now. If Jason's dead… she can't go there.

_I love you, Doc._

She won't go there again. Marta swallows and keeps her eyes straight. _You belong._ Staying calm around red blaring alarms is hard enough and people are running. She thinks they recognise her as she walks confidently though a secondary lab, swiping her card. She spots a lab coat, bright white and slips it on, pulling her hair out and down. _Doctor Shearing_. She walks down a hall, passes a guy on a cell who glances in her eye and she sees the spark of recognition. Marta strikes before he does.

His hand jabs out to grab her arm but she clamps her good hand around his wrist as tight as she can and wrenches it behind his back, slamming him face first into the white wall and hears the sickening crack of his nose breaking. He gasps for breath and pushes her back but she grabs the gun from his holster and shoots into his shoulder without a second thought. He goes down like a lead weight and she runs as people shout, scream and she dashes through steno pools and filers, pushing her way through. She looks around, the gun already hidden in the white coat like it's another part of her to conceal. Marta pushes past everyone else evacuating, slipping into another part of the office. She barricades the door behind her with a chair and rips up the blind. A stab of pain hits her hand as she leans on the window sill. It's broken or chipped inside. Adrenaline wears off, pain sets in and lets you know something's wrong as if the huge bruises, swelling, colouration and blood didn't help you twig something's wrong.

_You can run. Stay out of the airports, they won't find you. Go. You're a warrior._

Marta pulls open the window and sticks her head out. She's only two storeys up but it feels like two hundred to her. She looks around and grabs onto the guttering and pipes with the one good arm she has left, wrenching herself from the sill and grabbing for dear life. It's only one window over to her office. One shot, just one targeted shot will disable the airtight seal and she can get in. She gasps as she starts to slip, her fingers gripping for life and Aaron as she pulls the gun out and tries to aim. Alarms are blaring from inside, wind whipping her hair around. Marta takes a breath and shoots twice, turning her head as glass splinters around it, the window in shards.

Sliding the gun back into her waistband, she swings her leg out. It's maybe a 1foot away from her but again it feels like a mile to jump. One foot is flat on the outside rim of the window and she closes her eyes. One last leap, _come on, Doc._

She cries out as she grabs onto the PVC central column on the broken window with her own broken, disfiguring hand, the glass cutting even deeper into already deep wounds. Shit. The pain makes her see double and a foot slips. Marta gasps and wraps her arm around the column as she slips inside the dead cold of the lab she once called a home where she had none. She scrambles and pulls the door open, going to the test lab and the cold storage unit. Marta shakes as she takes out a tiny tube, one shot. She stares at it to the light and smiles softly, grabbing a hypodermic kit from the medical room. It's so quiet inside, haunted by ghosts of dead colleagues, dead friends and Aaron. He sat here as her test subject. Number Five by name but first in rank. He was always her favourite, though she had the feeling if she'd told him that, he'd be unbearable to live with. She rips the white coat off her shoulder and shoves it to the floor; all those times she'd done it to him, forcing him to give his blood, knocking him out to fiddle with his brain chemistry like he was nothing to her. He wasn't then but he is now and she needs to know. She has to.

Marta tourniquets her arm off and presses for a way in, her blood rushing to the surface of her arm. The needle is prepped, aiming for her vein. There's nothing now but fear and his face. She did it to him without his willing but maybe she can pay him back for all the years he spent as her pincushion. This can work. It'll work.

_Will it work, Doc?_

_Has to work._ "It has to work." She plunges the needle into her arm and presses the plunger down before her nerve goes.

Marta's got three minutes before the virus starts to hit her full force and change her chromosomes, mutate and develop her DNA.

It's not going to be easy, being viralled off on green.

* * *

A/N: I noticed while re-watching the film that I'd got a couple names wrong but I hope this is okay with everyone :)


	23. Chapter 23

Hello! It's a wet, windy day today and I needed to cheer myself up so I watched Legacy again (5th time, I think) and wrote some Aaron being all actiony :) Hope it does you well.

Thanks to everyone for the reviews on the last chapter. It's coming full circle in the next couple of chapters, so we'll be mixing narratives from this chapter onwards.

Please read and review

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23

_Click_

Aaron smiles. Byer blinks. All of a sudden, darkness isn't so dark anymore.

Aaron starts laughing, wiping the sweat off his brow. Jason's blood mixes with his own in a swipe across his cheek. "Unless you're planning to throw that at me, I think you're out of bullets." He shakes his head, the laughter on his lips halting. "Tell me where Dr Shearing is being kept." Aaron looks back up, breathing a little harder than usual. His broken nose has already stopped bleeding, started healing.

Byer doesn't say a word

"Where is Marta?!" he's starting to seethe inside, anger boiling up deep in his gut, the ridiculous laughter long since dead on his lips.

Byer holsters the empty gun and wipes the blood off his mouth, "Why does it matter so much to you?" he says, grabbing the toppled over chair – the one Aaron had been interrogated on – and sitting down, "She's just another girl. You used her for the viralling, right? Why not abandon her? Leave her behind, survive yourself? It's more logical and that's what you were trained to be." He smiles lazily, "Why is Dr Shearing so important to you, Agent Cross?"

Aaron's mentally planning his escape. Lie. "She's not."

_You can make it. You're a warrior._

Byer arches an eyebrow in disbelief, "There's no out from here. Every exit is wired. There are snipers everywhere and I have LARX-1 on standby. You want to live, you stay here." Byer leans forward conspiratorially. "Why Marta Shearing?"

"I'm not answering your bullshit questions." Aaron mutters, "Tell me where she is or I will kill you."

Byer stands up, realising what was in front of him. "You love her too?" he shakes his head, reaching for his cell as it starts ringing, "Byer." He smiles slowly, "Good. I got one down. Jason Bourne is dead." He swallows as he hears a woman calling Cross's name as if he were there. Aaron knows that voice better than his own.

"MARTA!" Aaron yells out as loud as he can, twisting Byer's hand and grabbing his cell. Byer dives for Aaron's ankles but misses, Aaron grabbing the cell phone in his hand and running for the staircase, legs burning as he tries to trace the last call, desperately needing to know where she was. If she was still alive. If he just heard her death.

Byer groans in pain after landing on his wounded shoulder, ripping the static-riddled walkie talkie from his belt, talking into it, "This is Eric Byer. Cross is on the move. Repeat: Cross is on the move, shoot to wound only!"

Aaron can't hear any more for the bullets. He has the flash drive and that's what he went through all of this shit for. He needs to get to Marta before she does something insanely stupid, as he had a gut feeling she was planning what he had tried talking her out of. Aaron jumps onto the upstairs banister, jumping up into the attic, heart is racing like it never has.

_Can you viral off blues?_

_Theoretically, yes._

He tries the cell, swallowing in fear when it won't connect _again_. He scrolls through everything Byer's done, Aaron's ice cold eyes cataloguing every call, every number, every statistic. Aaron ducks just as a gunshot hits the only window in the attic, the glass from the window shattering and the wood frame splintering at his feet. All he can think about is Jason dead downstairs and Marta maybe dead somewhere he doesn't know; not the snipers or LARX-1 that Byer promised awaited him outside.

_What do you call me? What do you put on my blood work?_

Aaron looks around in the relative darkness; he has perfect vision but struggles to adjust to pitch blackness that quickly, like plunging his body into ice water. He scrambles around for a weapon or some cover without giving away his position. "Come on." He grunts as his knee hits a strut in the roof. All Aaron has on him of any use is Byer's cell, and – thankfully – a reel of thick steel wire he can see glinting in the dark attic. He nods to himself and twists the wire quickly, wrapping it around his hand for a garrotte. He has means; motive… all Aaron needs, desperately, is opportunity.

_You've done enough for me. You've done enough._

Sniper bullets keep trying to catch him out through the now destroyed window, his hands aching with bruises and cold as he grips the wire in his calloused palm. The darkness crushing him, he looks down through the window before another bullet almost catches him on the temple. Aaron mentally crosses his fingers and jumps down onto the ground below, immediately springing up and rolling for cover behind a thankfully strong wall. Groaning in pain, but there's no time to think about what could happen in the next few minutes. He needs a plan, a new opportunity.

Aaron can spot the sniper agents that blanket him immediately, his senses locating them and their shots providing the angles. He can see a truck convoy in the distance but it's surrounded by snipers. Damn, can't hear Byer inside; he's gone back to the convoy, untouchable. The cell phone in his pocket rings and Aaron scrambles to answer it, putting on his best impression. "Byer."

"Sir, it's Dr Shearing. She escaped; found a way back into her lab." A panicked man's voice sounds and Aaron blanches. "She infected herself with the green stems. What do we do?!"

Aaron frowns, "Don't touch her." He growls and hangs up, tossing the cell away.

Marta infected herself? Aaron's going to kill her; all those fights about whether it was even possible for her body to seed adhesion to physical meds, the greens. Shit, shit, shit! He rests his head against the wall behind him and smiles, despite himself and the thought of her in pain. Marta Shearing was the only woman in the world brave enough to infect herself with live virus without taking the chems first, weaning her body into it. She went in blind and crossed her fingers, like she never did; Marta didn't jump without calculations and research. A horrible thought graces Aaron's mind as he spots a sniper closing in on him on foot foolishly. "It's got to be pretty bad at Sterisyn."

_Aaron?!_

He rolls and ducks the live fire from the sniper ten feet away from him, running hard and fast as he can bear. Vitriolic acid in his leg, the fire in his stomach are the fuels that run his mutated body, a body she moulded. Aaron runs into the back woods, panting, behind the building and climbs a tree quickly, getting enveloped by leaves and thick branches. Smells of chlorophyll and rotting leaves on the ground are picked up by his heightened senses; Aaron scrambles above the lone sniper, keeping still.

He clears his head.

He keeps his sight line.

He doesn't move.

The man below Aaron looks around, obviously confused at not seeing him anywhere near, the impossible escape; Aaron has the upper hand. One heartbeat of a pause and Aaron drops down on top of the guy, wrapping the wire between his hands around the agent's throat and slashing across before he could give away Aaron's location. The dead man's body slams to the ground with a sickened thud, blood starting to pool around Aaron's boots.

Aaron takes a breath, blinks, and remembers.

_That's an order._

_Our cause stays pure._

He immediately strips off the man's sniper rifle and hand gun, checking for fresh rounds. He's under thick cover in darkness. It's quiet in which his mind reaffirms his worst thoughts, his worst nightmares. Aaron looks down at the dead body by his feet, chewing on his cheek as the guilt sinks down into his insides. "I'm sorry." He mutters under his breath.

* * *

Byer goes out of the door, still talking on his walkie, "He went into the attic, concentrate your fire and force him out of there. I need him alive or I will take yours." He dashes across to the convoy, grabbing a fistful of gauze and pressing it into his gunshot wound, grinding his teeth at the intense pain. Byer watches and listens for the next few minutes, seeing Cross jump from the attic and land on his feet with ease before running for cover. The walkie crackles every so often, the snipers around Byer taking shots but none hitting their target.

The walkie crackles into life again, "He's gone into the woods. Our guy went rogue, tried to take him out."

"Order him out of there, now." Byer demands, "All hands back to convoy. Do not approach Aaron Cross. He's going nowhere. The woods are encircled by brick walls and barbed wire." The agents file back quickly with the barked order coming through; Byer sees the one from the woods come out, even his helmet still in place.

Byer shrugs off the medic trying to tend to his wound, focussing on more important things. "We need a trace. Get the drone overhead, he has no weapon, no means of escape. We track him and trap him now."

"Yes sir!" they chant. Three agents rush off to ready the drone, two left behind. He points at one, "You, I need you up high, get onto that roof and call out positions down here." Byer indicates the agent who had come from the woods.

Eric hangs his head for a second. He quirks his jaw, looking back up at the one agent left behind, the one who had come from the woods. He hasn't moved an inch. "That's an order, agent." He reiterates.

The man in black turns to walk but swings back, bringing the butt of his rifle down on Byer's head, ripping off his blacked-out helmet as Byer goes down. "Not anymore." Aaron says, kicking Byer in the stomach where he lay at Aaron's feet. He gets into the convoy truck and rips out the bottom panel before Byer wakes up, working furiously to hotwire the truck. He grins triumphantly when the motor starts and speeds away, the sniper agents panicking and calling out behind him.

Aaron leaves them in his dust, not looking behind him. Marta's at Sterisyn, trapped but as long as there was even a chance she was still alive, her heart still beating, he had to try. For Jason, for both of them. For always.

_Do you want to live?_

* * *

Byer groans as he rubs his neck. Cross had gotten away, probably switched cars and clothes by now. Must be heading for Shearing, if he knew where she was. Why risk the snipers otherwise?

One of the agents comes rushing up to him, clutching Byer's phone in his hand, "Sir! We found your cell. He took a call during the siege."

"What?" Byer snatches the phone and sees the call, dialling back. "This is Rick Byer, what the fuck have you done?!" he yells as the number picks up.

"What are you talking about, Rick? I told you earlier, Marta Shearing viralled herself off on green stems. She got into her lab somehow but she's trapped. You told us not to touch her."

Byer shakes his head, "Don't touch her, yet. Take her alive, the most secure cell room in Sterisyn Morlanta but keep her alive. She'll be riding out fever if the viral worked, and even if it didn't, she won't be strong enough to fight you again."

The man on the other end swallows, "Why are we keeping her alive, Rick? Wasn't the whole point of this to burn Outcome, burn everyone involved?"

"He's in love with her." He nods, thinking, "Cross is in love with Marta Shearing, he'll give up anything he has on Outcome, Blackbriar, Treadstone, LARX in order to keep her alive. She's worth more to him than his own freedom and we are going to exploit it. Keep her alive, keep her locked tight." He hangs up.

If Agent Cross wants Marta Shearing back, he's going to have to give himself in.

* * *

AN: well, what'd you think of actiony Aaron? :)


	24. Chapter 24

Wow. The response for the last chapter (and this fic on the whole) has been amazing! Thank you all so so much for the kind reviews :) This'll be the last chapter for another week at the least since Christmas is so close and is huge in my house. I still don't know how many chapters this'll end up as but I guess it can't last forever.

Anyhow, this chapter is a little on the short side because I'm rushed for time but I love it a lot. Marta-centric with Aaron (read on to find out how).

Please read and review. I hope you like it!

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24

It's like being hit by a freight train full of heat. 30 seconds, not 3 minutes, she's thinking.

Marta groans and leans against the wall, the needle still clutched in her hand. 30 seconds after ripping off the tourniquet and it has hit her bloodstream and gone straight for her heart.

She can't see. Sweat drips too far into her eyelashes like snowflakes when she was little, only these bite and sting. Marta swallows and claws at her skin frantically, her arms starting to bleed as her muscles scream at her like banshees. It's too much, too painful, too hard to do. Somewhere in the foggy quagmire of her brain, she can't function with more than one name repeated over and over, one name that tries to keep her fighting, wills her legs to work, to escape, to run or fight. She has to survive, has to keep going. Outcome Agent 5 – AKA Aaron Cross; the man. She can see his face in front of her. Her vision blurs like an old beloved photograph and suddenly he's standing in front of her, no scratches, no bruises, no marks or contusions – he's perfect. Marta's legs give up the ghost and collapse under the strain, fever hitting and melting her mind like fire as she lies back against the wall. The coldness behind her starts to soothe the burning pins within.

"_Marta?" _he says softly, like it's a prayer and she's his God. "_They're coming to find you. I can't save you, not this time. You gonna save yourself?"_

Marta pants and looks up Aaron. She knows he's not there – another fantasy her mind decides she needs to indulge in. "How?" she manages to croak out.

"_I think you know what to do." _He squats down to stare straight into her eyes. "_Please don't give up."_

"I'll never… give up on you." Her fingers grip her thighs as they burn again, the mere act of blinking was exhausting enough to Marta now. "I won't."

Aaron smiles his straight smile, the knowing eyes glaring into hers. She'd have believed them to be real if she didn't know better. "_Come on then. Get up. Escape. You wanted to feel what we felt; now you are."_ He stands up in front of her again.

Marta blinks. Aaron disappears.

She knows it wasn't real, on an intellectual level – which is really her strongest level – but Dr Shearing still groans in loss when she can't picture his face again. She has her memories to keep her strong, even if she never does see him alive again. Marta shivers and sweats and forces her arms to grip a dresser and haul herself up off the floor, the dead weight of her feet bearing no burden now. Oh fuck. Why'd she have to go full throttle at this? She keeps ruminating on her idiocy, sheer pig-headedness and arrogance to think she could handle what he went through. Of course it hit her harder. Of course it made her weaker than it made him. Of course it's killing her. Agent Aaron had years of green phys meds in his system to prepare his body, when she'd gone through a whole viralling with no testing; like jumping straight into ice water and having your blood freeze in your veins on contact. She lays her torso across a metal table, relishing the coolness of the metal against her crawling skin and hears a loud, ominous crash against the door.

"Oh shit." She whispers, glancing up and seeing, through the bar-lined glass, figures trying to claw their way into her hidey hole. They'd found her too quick, or maybe she'd been talking to fake Aaron Cross for longer than she thought. Marta closes her eyes as the thunderous crashes bore holes into her splitting skull.

"_You know, I always wondered whether you dressed up for me or the cameras."_

She looks up. Aaron's standing by the door, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. "What are you doing here?" Marta thinks she says it aloud. Maybe it's just her brain thinking it at him since her vocal cords feel strangled. It doesn't matter, in the end.

"_This is where I lean."_ He smirks and she remembers hating it when they first met. "_Yeah, I took some time to grow on you, didn't I?"_

"How…" she shakes her buzzing head, "You're a figment. Right." She chuckles and pushes herself up from the table. "So, Mr Figment. How do I survive this?"

"_If you don't know…"_ Fake Aaron tilts his head from side to side, "_How am I supposed to know, Doc? I am what you think of me."_

"I think you're crazy." She chuckles and braces herself against the broken-open window, the glass crunching between her feet. "Why did you have to pick me up, huh? You should have let them murder me in my home. It would have been so much simpler."

He pushes himself from the wall and stalks to her, standing by her side. "_Simpler, definitely. But you and I both know the past few months have been the best of your life." _He grins again, "_And I'd rather have a fun short life than a long, boring one."_

"And who said my life before this was boring?" she snaps, ignoring the fevered pain across her muscles. "I had friends, I had family, I had a house and a life and no one was trying to murder me!"

"_You're the one who thought it was boring, Marta."_ He smiles a little sadly, "_You just never admitted it, even to yourself."_

She swallows and looks up at Aaron. Fake Aaron. Figment Aaron. "You only call me Marta when we're really in trouble."

"_I know."_ He leans in and kisses her but it doesn't feel like she remembers. It makes her want to cry. "_Don't jump."_

"Why the hell not?" she bites her lip and lies her head against the window edge. "It's my choice, right?"

"_Don't jump."_

"Aaron…"

He grabs her roughly. It feels so real, the fingers digging into her arms feel like his. She can smell him, even. "_Don't jump."_

Marta gasps and nearly sobs out. She reaches an arm out to touch him but it's too late. Another blink and he's gone again. This is insane. She could die a free woman or live as a prisoner. Or worse case, she could die as a prisoner.

The door crashes open and the reverberating noise splits her skull into two pieces as her knees buckle to the floor and she collapses. She blinks, barely able to see the guns trained on her broken form. She's lying on shattered glass, bleeding, aching, fevered and demobilised. They're still afraid of her. They're afraid enough to get at least ten of the best forces men in the country to guard her mostly deadening body. They're _finally_ afraid of little old Marta Shearing. She smiles satisfactorily across the floor; maybe the power of the viralling isn't only physical. Her heavy eyes close as her fever starts to spike and she can only grasp and care about one word of what they're saying to her.

"Cross."

* * *

A/N: Whatever you're doing for the holidays, have a safe and fun time! :)


	25. Chapter 25

Hey everybody, did you miss me? :) I missed you. I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated but it's been a crazy few weeks: we had Christmas at my house and everybody was sick, so lo and behold I got sick too a few days after Christmas. First week back studying, I had an assignment and well, sad to say I lost my muse for a bit but now I'm excited! The reaction to the last chapter was so amazing, I couldn't go another day without writing the next chapter and putting Aaron very much alone for the first time in this fic. I love him.

P.S. It's my 23rd birthday this Wednesday and my friend and I are having a Renner movie marathon (including Legacy of course!) to celebrate. Leave me some love so I have even more muse-returnings!

Thank you all so much for every review, favourite, read and very special author favourites too :) love you guys.

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25

So much can go wrong in the space of a few minutes. Aaron twirls the flash drive between his fingers without looking, performing the usual circus tricks for his too-clear mind. He's camped out for the night while his injuries heal; the itch on his superhuman skin is trying to drive him insane, of course but there's more to preoccupy him. He's lost a lot more in the past couple of days, more than he's ever even had in his life. A friend in Jason, a love in Marta… now he knows why people like him were meant to be alone and stayed that way.

If he were alone, things would be easier. So… so much easier, without guilt or pain. Fuck, he can't think about that now. It'd be stupid to take her back and use the flash drive between his fingers while he can hear his cracked ribs healing inside him. Thanks to her hypodermic needle, he'd be close to normal in a few hours; he should have thanked her for that. There's a lot of things he's listing, things he should have done. He should have listened closer when she talked about how it worked; it's all science-y stuff he could understand if he listened but her eyes got little sparks in them when she talked about it and damn him if it isn't the most fantastic thing he's ever seen. He should have kissed her more but he knows he will again and absence will always make his heart grow fonder when it comes to Marta. He's become soppy and romantic, huh?

Aaron chuckles and folds his aching arms under his head. He misses that _thing _about her; how she gets the gold sparks that seem to glow around her like an aura and emanate from her skin. Not that he believes in auras or whatever; life for Aaron is visceral. He believes what he sees, hears, smells, feels, tastes. Maybe it's just blind hope that another plane of existence doesn't exist, since Aaron wouldn't be allowed in a paradise of any kind. Life is all in the now; it's up and down and pain and pleasure, happiness and regret, love and apathy.

He's travelled and killed people the world over, heard women and children and good men screaming in pain; mothers and daughters, fathers and sons mowed down worldwide under the name of the flag. Old glories never die. It's not like he's the normal soldier but every single man he served alongside, all of them, had nightmares. Nobody talked about it but it was always there, bubbling under the surface of everyone's brains. Aaron looks up into the rafters of the shack he's bedding down in for the night and wishes it was stars or her eyes so he could have a distraction from himself. Pain and sadness define us as much as happiness or love, and he is defined by his. People look up at beauty and see their futures or feel pretty damn small in the big scheme of things, but when Aaron looks up at beauty all he sees is something to worship in the absence of power.

He's always been easily led.

* * *

He wakes up just before dawn like always, programmed into him at a molecular level most likely. Aaron sits up and presses the pads of his calloused fingers into his sides, checking for pain. There's a little spike over a couple of areas but he knows she'd write him off as ready for action with that diagnosis, so he quickly bundles what's he's managed to scavenge – _steal – _from bags and purses and slips out of his temporary home, making sure there's not even a flake of skin left for Byer to find him by. No stone turned back over. He slips a worn blue cap on his head and walks parallel to the only road he can see, a slick of tarmac and chipped paint from fifty years ago. This place is pretty remote, still. Abandoned storage sheds and barns are precursors to houses, probably warm with people and families with pets, food, and coffee. God he misses coffee. Ten miles down, walking through bushes and trees, he sees the first road sign in days. It's old and worn like him but he can see it clear as day and it makes the hope he has climb (what little it seemed like, at times);_ City Limits 5 miles._ He's not sure there's a sweeter feeling in the world. He runs the next 5 miles and the earth feels like a cloud beneath his feet.

* * *

A few miles past the limits, Aaron finds a diner and sees a wealth of cars in the front, begging for him to pick the locks. It'd be so easy, to dig out his pickers and crack a door open, hotwire it and barrel it through Sterisyn like a knight in armour. He can see people inside on barstools directly looking out at the lot and realises he'd be immediately… Then he sees it through the glass. The TV in the diner flashes her photo. _Her_ photo with the word 'captured' in bright red; Byer must have sent it out for Aaron to see, for him to find and incense his violent streak. It's working. Aaron runs inside and immediately goes up the counter, craning to see the TV.

"…_say that Dr Shearing's terrorist connections may remain at large still on the east coast. According to inside witnesses, when under interrogation for her crimes against the United States of America, Dr Shearing said only this; 'Oh when I know to free hate, to sever no-one.'"_ Aaron frowns for a second, ignoring the waitress calling him. "_So far, that is all we have but stay tuned for more on that story at 6."_ There's a millisecond pause before the suited reporter goes onto another piece and Aaron reels back. "Oh when I know to free hate, to sever no-one?" he mutters aloud to himself.

"Sounds weird, right?" the waitress perks up and he finally notices.

"What does?" Aaron asks testily, staring at her. She's blonde and fairly young, younger than he is he'd say. Her hair is wavy and put up into a ponytail, her eyes a piercing green he immediately finds naivety in. The red apron around her curved hips holds something inside. Cataloguing was his distraction, the past two days. Anything to keep his mind busy.

"The… phrase thing she said." The waitress pours out coffee for a trucker sat to Aaron's left a couple seats away, "It doesn't mean anything. Just random words…"

The trucker grumbles as he sips his coffee, voice rough and hewn with smoke, "Well what'd you expect? She's a terrorist. They ain't gonna make sense anytime soon."

It's a true testament to Aaron's stronger will and Marta's calming effect on him that he didn't slit that guy's throat and watch the blood and coffee drip out of him with relish. Breathe, instead.

The waitress raises her eyebrow at the trucker-guy and chuckles, "She don't look like a terrorist to me. Those eyes… they're scared eyes… something's not right." She sighs to herself, looking at Aaron, "Coffee, hun?"

Aaron decides he likes her a little more. He nods at her question and sits down, taking off his backpack. A little rifling and he grins for a second as he digs out a stray piece of paper, "You got a pen?" he asks as she pours a cup out for him, Aaron immediately drinking down half of it in one go.

"Sure." She pulls one from her apron and sets it in front of him without question. "I'm-"

"Michelle, I know." He gestures to her name tag, "Thanks, Michelle."

She smiles a little sweetly and he looks back down, eyes drawn to the paper and focussed. He's saying that phrase over and over in his head, mulling it over. Aaron sighs internally and looks around, trying to find a trigger for his slowness. Strange sounding sentences were always some kind of encrypted data, some code or … numbers. Numbers… "Oh when I know…" he says quietly to himself, writing down 0… 1… 9… 0… on the scrap paper. "To free hate…" he writes down 2…3…8, "To sever no-one." 2…7…0…1…

His eyes widen in glee, pure unadulterated happiness, unable to comprehend how fantastic she was, even locked up in her own workplace. Her beautiful, beautiful encrypted brain set him free. Aaron downs the rest of his coffee and gets up, leaving Michelle's pencil behind and a buck for the coffee, beaming to himself. He runs out into the sun and feels it warm his once cold skin as he steps from the diner's porch. "01902382701." He says aloud, the hunger and pain completely gone from within his bones. Aaron looks at the scrap paper he'd written the numbers on and back at the diner, no longer caring about her photo on the news, the red captions not bothering him a bit. He knows Marta and her brilliance, her genius.

Aaron takes out his map as the wind threatens to whip it away from his fingers, going around the back of the diner out of sight. _Numbers… Marta… numbers but… what the hell do they mean?_ He thinks to himself as he looks over his map. _What is it with that woman and making everything ridiculously complicated and impossible?!_ He closes his eyes. Marta had said a phrase, encrypted with numbers for what purpose? Aaron rubs his fingers, putting a foot on top of the map as wind picks up. Doubt is starting to creep up on him; doubt and guilt in tandem are driving him insane. Maybe they weren't numbers; maybe those words were just her genius brain on virals, lit up with fevered fire and delirium. He can't stand the thought of her alone and scared like he was before he got into Outcome. Some scared kid blithely looking…

"You okay?"

Aaron's head pops up, startled. Michelle, the waitress, has a bag of trash in her hands and is looking at him with some degree of concern and confusion.

"What… yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"You…err… you were muttering to yourself there…" she looks at him and her eyes flick to the paper his hand, scribbled with the numbers, "If you're looking for the library, it's about a half mile off the highway." Michelle dumps the bag of trash in the dumpster and wipes her hands on her apron, starting back inside.

"Library?" he asks and she turns.

"Yeah, the numbers?" she chuckles, "That's their phone number… I know, I used to work there when I was in school." She shrugs.

Aaron chuckles, the weight lifted. "Phone number for the library? Of course it is…" He laughs, the wind dying down to a flutter. He could kiss this naïve, sweet girl… he would, but Marta would murder him after he saved her. Quite rightly too

"You sure you're okay? You look kind of…"

"Michelle, you got a pay phone in there?" he cuts her off, taking out the last quarter in his pocket.

* * *

AN: Credit for the number/word homonym encrypted thing goes to the writers of Jonathan Creek (freaking brilliant TV show). I certainly don't have the brains to make something like that up :) please review for them too.


	26. Chapter 26

Heya! :) I had a great birthday, thanks to you all! The reviews for the last chapter were great! It's taken me a while to find some time and inspiration to write but I think you'll like this. There's a bonus tag on to chapter 25 here but I'll explain why in the A/N at the end. Hope you all like number 26 because 27 is going to be rollercoaster action, heartbreak, romance and maybe a twist or two.

Hope you all like this one :) please read and review

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26

"Michelle, you got a pay phone in there?" Aaron cuts her off, taking out the last quarter in his pocket.

"End of the hall!" Michelle calls back as they both go back inside.

Aaron slides a couple quarters into the scratched up payphone and dials 01902382701. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, wary of the people around him; anyone could be watching him, recognise him, call him in and before he knew it, he'd be confronted with Marta's dead body and a ransom. Anxious, he leans his head against his arm as the phone rings.

"Hello, Williamsburg Public Library, how can I help?" a friendly, monotonous voice answers, played and repeated often.

"Honestly, lady, I have no idea." He chuckles. "Does the name Marta mean anything to you?"

"Marta? Who the hell are you? What do you want? I've told you everything you wanted, leave me alo-"

"My name is Aaron Cross. Who is Marta Shearing to you?" He hears a sniffle and a quiet voice. He has to be quick before they trace it. "Please."

"She was my sister. You're Aaron Cross, right?"

Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning passing through his body, he understands. Aaron knows why Marta is leading him to this girl; she's the only one – besides him – that she trusts. Her sister. Her fucking sister and their last resort. "I'm sorry darlin'…" he chuckles, all charm and "What was your name again?"

* * *

There are a lot of theories swimming through her head. How they know her better than she knows herself, or at least seem to. Marta's limbs burn so badly. Her eyes can't focus on anything but the sweat dripping from her eyelashes. It's so hot in here, she thinks, they're going to burn her alive. Stark, bright whiteness seeps through her eyes, squinting and pupils darting as they strain for information. She hates no knowing where she is, whether she's alone or not, whether she recognises anything or anybody. Just give her anything.

Marta groans in pain as her fever worsens and cripples her stomach into twisting around like the virus itself. Empirically, she knows what's going to happen to her still; her DNA is being wiped and rewritten, viral mapping changing every part of her. Aaron is mad at her; she doesn't know how but he definitely is - hand shaking, Hulk-smash mad at her for doing what he had gone through – except she knew what was going to happen. Marta had no idea it had been this bad for her Aaron.

Wrists scream 'torture' where they're strapped down to the gurney, her ankles and thighs too but – thank god for small mercies – she's still dressed in her torn and dirty clothes. To even think someone else had touched her skin, she didn't think she could stand her nerve endings over-firing and burning her alive. It fucking sucks.

"Oh when I know to free hate, oh to sever no-one." She whispers again as razorblades dipped in kerosene douse her throat again. It kills to speak but she has to tell him, hope it gets through somehow. This place had spies and bugs all over, despite what they thought they knew.

_"You think I'm going to figure it out? Even if it does reach me?"_

"Fuck." Marta sighs to herself. "Not you again. You're not real, get out."

Fake Aaron smiles and bends over her face, his hand touching her cheek. _"It's too much for your body."_

She smiles in relief as his hand seems to cool her. It's the only part of her that doesn't burn and she wonders why. "No, it's fine. I'm fine."

_"Marta."_ He presses. She can see his blessed face seeming to shine in gold. _"It's too much. You know it or I wouldn't. That's how hallucinations work, remember?"_

"Unless I'm dead already and so are you." She chuckles and feels bile rise to her oesophagus.

He presses a kiss to her forehead but she can't feel it. Marta so badly wants to feel it. Tears leak from the corner of her eyes – it's been forever and a second is too long.

_"You're not dead. You won't die here. I promise you, I'm coming and we're going to put this to an end."_

"One way or another." She tries to focus on his eyes, the same swirling blue spheres of Earth that she's loved to study. "You're coming, right?"

_"Yeah. I'm going to be your knight in shining armour."_

Both their heads turn as the sound of a door opening crashes her hallucination. Even fake comfort is comfort. She can't see much but a blur and white but that smell… that smell makes her feel worse instantly Expensive cologne, pungent and herbal, creeps its way up her nose.

"Dr Marta Shearing; graduated second in your class." Byer says, a chair now beside her gurney. She's pleased to make out purple and red on his face. Aaron. "Bet that got your goat."

"I'm the classic over achiever." She parrots. "I read my psych file too, Eric." Fake Aaron stands at the end of her gurney and smirks in her peripheral vision. "Over-achieving family, shy and quiet, never made much of a connection apart from one. Peter Jelinski, AKA Peter Boyd, AKA Outcome Three. You tore him limb from limb with a bomb and bought off his Father. Blamed some American enemy scapegoat for it. Not like he'd believe me anyway." Marta pants and bites her cheek to keep from screaming in agonising pain. "I know more about you than you know."

If he was perturbed by her speech, his voice didn't show it. "And how much do you really know about Aaron Cross – sorry, Kenneth James Kitsom? Originally in a care home in Reno Nevada. You never bothered to ask him about it before your little adventure in The Philippines."

_"I was an idiot."_

"He thinks he's stupid. I disagree." Marta's eyes start to clear. "I thought he was just alone, more alone than you or I could ever know."

_"That's true."_ Fake Aaron nods and leans against the wall behind him. _"It can't be explained."_

"You just feel it from his pores." She rasps and leans closer to Byer, her eyes starting to focus. "But you know that. Every one of them I met, I felt it. Loneliness and no family. All of them reeked of despair and desperation. They looked for meaning or purpose or some bullshit and you handed them a fake life with fake honour."

"A life you enabled, Dr Shearing. It was your lab, your research. You've got to know how culpable you are if this goes public."

_"When."_ Fake Aaron pips in, hands in jean pockets.

"I know I'm culpable. I know it and that's what I live with every night." She leans back, exhausted and weak. Marta doesn't like feeling vulnerable at the best of times, let alone with Byer sitting next to her, telling her about her faults.

"He's not coming for you, Dr Shearing." Byer says bluntly, "He's left you here with me because he got what he needed from you. That's all you were, a way out with his brain intact."

She laughs. Marta laughs so loudly, she doesn't care how much it makes her ache, "I bet your old report cards said 'must try harder' on them a lot." Marta slumps as she tries to get her breath back and looks to the end wall. Her dream is gone, with nothing but an empty space at the end of her gurney. She smiles a little, the pain bearable. "Sorry, Byer. You can't break me. Not even with a hole in my heart." Her eyes close and falls unconscious as her body cannot keep up with her mind.

The next time she opens her eyes, Aaron's there again. Only this time, he's flesh and bone and blood. And she's strong.

* * *

A/N: So I added the extra bit to chapter 25 because I want to ask what you think Marta's sister's name should be. I can't decide! :) leave me a comment with your suggestions and I'll credit in the next chapter.


	27. Chapter 27

Huge thank yous to reviewers and likers :D y'all are awesome. We're coming to the end few chapters, and I'm sad about it coming to an end (this isn't the final chapter yet!) but I guess it has to end some time.

Also credit goes to ohvafltn for the name of Marta's sister. I thought it was perfect :) dedicated to you, my friend 3

Please read and review. Confrontation and reunions of more than one kind to come in 28!

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27

Aaron's not sure what to expect from a sister of Marta Shearing. She'd told him little bits and pieces, between the blood and gore, but in truth he only listened because he thought Marta would never see her own sister again. He's an empathy listener. Apparently they were close; he'd never had any siblings that he knew of so he figured that was normal for sisters who were close in age to be best friends too. He's not expecting much really; no woman he'd ever met had been as brilliant as Marta and he doesn't think he'd ever meet someone else like her again, either. It's only when he hears her breath behind his ear – a cold vaporous breath – that he knows that this girl is going to be trouble. The butt of another gun is pressed into the nape of his neck and a safety clicked off but Aaron doesn't stiffen. He knows this girl, Marta's little sister, after all. Then something hits him; some sweet, ripe smell like passion fruit. No. It's too familiar, it's muted but his senses can pick up smells like a bloodhound. Fuck. She washes her hair in the same stuff Marta used to, before the whole fake death and running for their lives thing. He hasn't smelled that smell for months. It makes him falter for the first time.

"Who are you?" her voice sounds out like a reprieve. Her voice isn't like Marta's; it's rougher and deeper but still inherently female.

He puts his hands up to his sides in surrender. Aaron's nervous to turn around and see what she looks like – it might be too much for him to take, "I'm just a guy."

She doesn't like that and digs the gun deeper, "Don't piss me off, man. I'm not one to fuck around with."

Aaron chuckles a little, "I'm a friend of your sister."

"My sister is dead; I suggest you get to the point before I put a bullet in your skull."

"She's not dead. My name's Aaron, Aaron Cross." He swallows, "How much do you know about what Marta did at her job? At Sterisyn Morlanta?"

She pulls the gun back from his neck, "Not a lot. She was the most intelligent person I knew… kind of naïve…" they both chuckle simultaneously, "But I knew she was a geneticist for a huge company but they made her sign a waiver. She would want to tell me all about it but I had to stop her from doing it because a big company, working in genetics? Of course the government's going to be involved somehow."

"You're smart." He smiles internally, "You probably have more common sense than Marta, too."

"We're getting off the course here," he notices that her hand doesn't waiver. "Who are you, Aaron Cross, and why are you telling me that my sister is alive when we buried her months ago?" he can hear the catch in her voice, too.

"I was a test subject for your sister's bosses. She tested her formulas on me and people like me. We were injected and given pills… they change our base DNA, made us stronger and smarter. Your sister invented the medications they gave us and kept refining them." He says quickly, wary of her still, "But the government agency running it shut us down. You see, we're assassins. We killed dangerous people and rescued captured POWs and American nationals worldwide but we did bad things too. They shut it down. They killed the high-ups at Sterisyn and murdered the five other agents your sister worked with. I escaped."

He can't hear anything for a second. Thinking over everything that's gone in his past, he's barely scratched the surface with her.

"And they killed her? To cover it up?" she doesn't sound unbelieving of him. He's not sure what to expect from her, after all. "Weirdly, only Marta could get herself into that situation and still be alive."

Aaron turns around slowly, eyes sunken with fear. He's hoping that she looks nothing like her sister. Marta's eyes in front of him would surely break him down into pieces he promised himself he wouldn't. He looks at her, the dim light cascading onto her features. He breathes.

"What?" she frowns, gun still trained on him.

He swallows, "You look so much like her. I haven't seen her in… a while. I…" She's beautiful too. Glossy dark hair pulled up away from her face, the same strong jawline as Marta, slim cheekbones he's kissed. "You look like her."

"Except for the eyes." She murmurs, "I got greens. Hers are-"

"The most beautiful deep brown and gold you ever saw." He finishes, nodding, "You're Meredith."

Those green eyes widen and he's convinced someone likes him, she's too much like Marta but those eyes are too different as well. He'd break, he knows. "She told you my real name? I always hated that." Meredith lowers her gun but doesn't take the safety off. "I don't tell anyone my real name. Everyone calls me Merry."

"I know a lot about you. Marta's told me everything." He smirks, "There's a scar on your arm where Marta pushed you into a pond when you were young. Your arm snagged on a piece of glass and Marta screamed because she was scared you were going to die. She went with you to the hospital and refused to leave you until your mother had to drag her away, kicking and screaming."

Meredith sniffles and smiles, visibly crumbling under the weight of her grief. "Marty thought it'd be funny, pushing me into that damn pond with the ducks because I ate her Halloween candy." She blinks and leans back against a bare brick wall, "She slept in my bed for three weeks after that."

"She didn't want you to have nightmares."

"Marta's alive?" Meredith looks up at Aaron, eyes glistening with water, "Where is she? I need to see her."

"You can't." he swallows at the darkness that seems to glide over her. "At least, not now. She's been captured by the people who tried to kill us but I know she's alive." Aaron takes two wide steps forward and grabs her arms, "She led me to you. You can help me somehow, Marta doesn't do anything without reason."

"Just because I believe she's alive doesn't mean I trust you." She looks at him, a look he can't read, "Why should I?"

"Because you're like her. The only chance you've got to get your sister back is to trust me. I'm not taking no for an answer."

Lightning speeds, his left hand grabs her gun deftly, spinning it back to her temple.

Meredith leans to her side a little, a curious smile on her face, "Yeah. I can see why she'd like you, Aaron… she always attracted bad boys."

* * *

"I don't know how you want my help." She says, sitting inside of a quiet diner, the 24 hour joint near dead at 3.23am as it was. "I'm just a librarian; I didn't even get her things after she died. They said Marta left it to charities." She rubs her temple, her hand cupped around a cup of dead coffee.

He looks down, fingers pressing into the countertop, "I just need to know anything she told you about work. Why would she lead me to you, Meredith?" he mutters in his deep tones of honey, eyes piercing hers intensely.

Meredith shakes her head, "I don't know, okay. I haven't seen her in a year now, I don't know anything."

"You must've talked on the phone, though. What was the last thing she told you about work?"

Her eyes scan the counter, as if looking for an answer she doesn't like to think about. "I… it was something about viruses… no wait…"

"Viralling?"

"Yeah, viralling." She looks at him, "She said she'd given this viral to Number Five." His ears pick up at that. "She said his chemistry didn't accept it the same as the others; that it was developing better and quicker than she'd dreamt of. She petitioned them to bring him in for study, to find out why but they said no. That was all she could tell me. Or at least all I remember."

Aaron leans back, finally taking a breath; he understands everything except one thing. Marta never told him he took the viral differently to the others. She never said a damn word to him about it. He doesn't know why or whether he was even angry, but somehow he knew he could work it to his advantage. Marta does these things for good reason and he's taught her well enough to think like an Agent. "Meredith, I need you to do something for me."

"What?" she asks, frowning Marta's frown. "Whatever it is, I can't-"

"Yes you can. I need you to call the police and tell them a man called Aaron Cross is stalking you and he's demanding answers, armed and dangerous."

She leans back, her eyes flickering to his hands instinctively. "Why?"

"You're going to turn me in. The people who have Marta need me alive when I tell them that they can have me instead." He pulls out the flash drive from his top pocket where he always keeps it safe. Everything he needs to incriminate them is on there. All Aaron has to do is get Marta's sister to put him in the inner sanctum, the beating bloodied heart of Byer's operation. Talking to this woman, this spit of her sister, Aaron knows know why Marta led him to her sister; Meredith's the only one Marta trusts to not kill him on sight. "I'm sorry, Meredith." He sighs and puts the flash drive into her palm, curling her fingers over it gently. "You need to let them discover this on you. It's encrypted. They won't be able to access the information without me and your sister." He swallows and leans in close to her, muttering, "Now I need you to hit me as hard as you can, Meredith. It's got to look good."

* * *

Prison cells don't look good at 6am, he's concluding very quickly. Darkness is breaking into dawn with light streaming through barred windows, casting dark shadows across his chest. Meredith, it turns out, has a mean right hook and wasn't afraid of putting every bit of grief and anger into her swing. Aaron knew that if he'd been a normal person, she'd have broken his eye socket. Luckily for her, he was superhuman. Or should that be lucky for him?

The cell door creaks open and a cop, his hair greying at the temples, motions for Aaron to stand, "I don't know what kind of contacts you got, pal, but they got to be high ups. Your bail's been posted."

Aaron sits up from his cot bed, "About time. What's the name?" he gets up, stretching.

The cop looks down at the charge sheet, "Eric Byer. He's waiting for you outside, kid. I'd kiss his toes in worship if I were you."

"Oh I'll do something." Aaron mutters, following the copper to find Byer and get this over and done with, once and for all.


End file.
